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THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 
JOHN ARCHIBALD MacCALLUM 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
In 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/greatpartnershipOOmacc_0 


THE (, wal 201026, 
GREAT PARTNE LE 
God and Man 





BY 


JOHN ARCHIBALD “MacCALLUM 
Author of “Now I Know,” ete. 





NEW BY york 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1926, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 
esp eer 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


This book is affectionately dedicated 

to my first tutor and priest through 

whose wise and delicate guidance I 

learned in early childhood of God 
and Duty and Destiny— 


MY MOTHER 


Piva 


i Cy ts sti 
ay 





PREFACE 


This book is based upon and grows out of the con- 
viction that man is of divine origin: he is the offspring 
of God. If this premiss is true, then it is certain that 
God must have a purpose in his children. It is beyond 
the reach of our minds to give a final explanation or 
even description of that purpose; but we are on safe 
ground in saying that the Father seeks to express him- 
self through the achievements of those who share his 
life. The pressure of his Spirit is the dynamic that 
pushes them into action. ‘Thus they are united with 
him in a joint enterprise that I have called The Great 
Partnership. 

Man, however, can never meet his full responsibility 
unless and until he understands that he has infinite re- 
sources at his command. God is the senior partner who 
has furnished the capital, and he is always ready to 
have any of his fellow-laborers use whatever of his 
wealth they can to further their mutual interests. The 
wisdom of the ages, the beauties of the earth and sky, 
the inspirations of art and history, the joy of serving, 
the discoveries of science, and the laws of the universe 
—these and a thousand other gifts are for those who 
can use them. 

The purpose of the following essays is to show that 
man lives in God and God in man. In them I make 
no attempt to be logical, neither in the order of my 
approach to the various aspects of the subject nor in 


the sense of offering definitions, because none can tell 
vil 


Viil PREFACE 


where divinity leaves off and humanity begins. A com- 
plete interpretation of these two controlling ideas lies 
beyond our apprehension. God is in nature, history, 
and society, as well as in ourselves. In love, beauty, 
joy, faith, law, wisdom, and goodness, he presses into 
our lives and, as we reveal these qualities in character, 
we prove our kinship to him and our capacity to act as 
his agents. This explains how and why it is that 
in serving man we are serving God and thereby real- 
izing our highest potentialities. 
J. A. MacC. 
Philadelphia (January, 1926). 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
PREFACE . : : v F é : z vil 


INTRODUCTION 4 : : : : NG A Ge) 


Section I: The Ground of Relationship 


CHAPTER 


I Mawn’s NEED oF Gop . : : ; see 20) 
II Gop’s NEED or Man . E ; : Or AG 
III Gop’s FairH 1n Man . : : ‘ ey ey L 


Section II: God in Action 


PEN May OAS OREATOR Fa) seus aes hua oa a AO 
~“ V_ Gop As SOVEREIGN : : SORA 
Vie OD AS 1) UGS (N's ie ay chen cranes eu nirtun mes) 
NGO ASUMATORR Aye wir Gtuln om tent G sete 
a ee ODE AS VVORKERN Va i i iep teas wl ie anit ie TOO 

IX Gop As FRIEND. : ; : ‘ ie bed. 

POD AS) COMBORTER Maan mee cas elk DAG 


Section IIIT: God im Attribute 


Pe AaOD JASORIGHTEQUSNESS 1) a) his vl. ep EA 
PRC Mee COD SASH OLINESS hii) hr con! os anda TOO 
VXIII Gop as Love aa Aa ey Ai 
RAN OCEODN ASS MERCY Sire: Sshs iste: Arar che eT Bele: 

XV Gop As GRACE Pape Seo SOTA, LAYS nAneO3 
XVI Gop as PEACE AURORE Vachon dete hetea tet PCat 


VS LRIEITE RAS. LOY Uae ii cat 70° Wik Maer i and ee 


ix 


x CONTENTS 


Section IV: God in Essence 


CHAPTER PAGE 
DOVER GOD ASE LTR! AC Ae MiNi anni nen eae eee 
MOL De ee ASD GAS tO WISR Nb Roe nam aga : . oi) eae 
Ps COD AS OLG Tern ok : A : Pe aa 
ROC CSOD AS RUT Rive tk, ; ; a ; iene 
XXII Gop as Law OO Fa NE ps OS ARISE Vics 
"XLT, GOD JAS PURPOSE [hi na) oa Mae nv a et 


INDEX SARE Tea)) es Wan yee ar ea a 


THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


Ai 


Fo te 
iv ‘ 
Ar 





INTRODUCTION 


I 


Perhaps it would be unsafe to say that there is not 
as clearly defined a sense of God to-day as in some of 
the ages that are past. We can not be certain that we 
have the data that would justify such a conclusion. 
In estimating our own time we are always aware of 
its defects, while in surveying other ages there is a 
strong tendency to think only of their virtues. We 
sing of the “faith of our fathers,’ and generously ig- 
nore their truculence, querulousness, bigotry, and other 
limitations. Just as a remote landscape always ap- 
pears more beautiful than that which is near at hand 
because its harsh outlines are softened by distance and 
the sordid wounds of industry are hidden behind a 
protective veil of dust, smoke, and mist, so time throws 
the illusion of romance over the character of former 
generations. Their courage, vigor, and resolution 
stand out majestically, while their sins and vices are 
reduced to minor proportions or sink entirely out of 
view. Men who have understanding of their times 
have always been aware of this superstition which has 
been strikingly exposed by Sir Thomas Browne: 


It is the humor of many heads to extol the days of 
their forefathers, and declaim against the wickedness 
of times present. Which notwithstanding they cannot 
handsomely do, without the borrowed help and satire 
of times past ; condemning nt vices of their own times, 


14 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


by the expressions of vices in times which they com- 
mend, which cannot but argue the community of vice 
in both. Horace, therefore, Juvenal, and Persius, were 
no prophets, although their lives did seem to indigitate 
and point at our times.* 


Doubtless it is true that in certain groups of men, 
and for certain limited periods there was a profounder 
realization of the presence of God than that which pre- 
vails to-day. This is illustrated in such a movement as 
Puritanism in the days of its greatest fervor, before it 
became denatured by cant, or in the rise of Methodism; 
but what counts in history is the sustained tendency. 
Here and there in pockets or small protected areas un- 
usual levels of character have been reached; but the 
human race is a unit; the law of spiritual gravitation 
is always at work drawing the men of greater achieve- 
ment toward the common level. For a few generations 
a spiritual aristocracy may flourish, but sooner or later 
the pull of the world will sterilize its self-perpetuating 
power. This does not mean that it has failed. On the 
contrary, there is a law of spiritual as well as of phys- 
ical conservation. The great moral achievements and 
idealisms of the past have, in their decay, enriched the 
soil for succeeding generations. Egypt, Greece, Israel, 
and Rome live on in multitudes who scarcely know 
their names and have no sense of obligation toward 
them. As Browning makes the Bavarian priest, Abt 
Vogler, say: 


There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall 
live as before; 
The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 


1 “Pseudodoxia Epidemica.” 


INTRODUCTION 15 


What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much 
good more; 

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect 
round. 


All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall 
exist ; 

Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor 
power 

Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the 
melodist 

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 


The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth 
too hard, 

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the 
sky, 

Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; 

Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and 
by. 


When these considerations are duly weighed, the 
conclusion is probably sound that with all its defects— 
its frivolity, sensuality, and spiritual illiteracy—our 
age is no further from God than any age in the past. 
But this is not a ground of satisfaction. On the con- 
trary, if progress is not an illusion, we should be more 
sensitive than our ancestors to the divine presence. 
Ours is a greater reason than theirs, for they left us 
a vast legacy as the fruit of their sacrifices and cou- 
rageous struggles against almost overwhelming odds. 
If fifty years of Europe are better than a cycle of 
Cathay, life in the twentieth century is immeasurably 
preferable to life in an earlier age—at least for those 
who are in a position to realize its richer possibilities. 


16 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


Then too, our inheritance has been supplemented by 
science applied to every activity of life. Science has 
relieved us of many a pain which our forefathers had 
no choice but to endure; it has made easy many a hith- 
erto slavish task; it has extended our leisure however 
we may misappropriate it; it has banished many of 
our diseases and given us a control of circumstance 
undreamed of in earlier ages. Theoretically it would 
seem that this enrichment of life should make its bene- 
ficiaries more alive to the source of their blessings; 
practically, however, it has not worked out that way. 
The sense of God is neither as deep nor as wide as 
our opportunities for spiritual achievement suggest and 
our spiritual health requires. 


Il 


The greatest task with which the leaders of the Chris- 
tian church are confronted is to stimulate in men the 
consciousness of God. Nor is this task confined to the 
leaders of the church; it rests upon all men of vision, 
for surely it is undeniable that a realization of the 
Eternal is an indispensable element in the highest char- 
acter. What a transformation would be wrought in 
our social relations if all men were endued with a sense 
of the divine! How differently they would go about 
their work! What an increased feeling of responsi- 
bility would be theirs, giving them a new perspective 
so that they would liquidate their former interests and 
refund their assets! They would recognize many of 
their previous holdings as valueless—the pleasures and 
ambitions which hitherto had been dominant in their 
purposes—but they would see that every loss thus suf- 
fered can be recouped a hundred-fold by a realization 


INTRODUCTION 17 


of the reality of God and the will to give him the first 
place in thought and action. 

Why is it so difficult to believe in God; or at least 
to take him seriously? Job’s plaintive cry, “O that I 
knew where I might find him,” is still the cry of multi- 
tudes. Doubtless every man would like to believe, to 
feel that he is watched over and protected by a benefi- 
cent Creator who finds delight in his well-being, even 
though in other moods he should shrink from the all- 
seeing eye. Yet as I write, there lies upon my desk a 
current magazine in which there is an article by one of 
the most gifted of American men of letters. He con- 
fesses that he is so benumbed in spirit by the spectacle 
of life always feeding upon life, that he cannot accept 
the comfortable explanation which holds that there is 
a good and kindly purpose behind it all. The slaughter 
house, epidemic, accident, the death of the young and 
the promising, the universal cry of pain—these in their 
totality blot out from his vision any signs of friendli- 
ness in the universe. 

Nor can it be denied that this attitude is representa- 
tive of many intellectual leaders from the time of 
Hume, though Job had stated the problem ages before. 
Man’s littleness against the blind forces of nature ap- 
palls him when he reflects upon the contrast. It is hard 
to reconcile the reign of law with an intelligent direct- 
ing mind which discriminates in favor of the good as 
against the bad. The imagination staggers under the 
thought of the world’s population, a billion and a half 
of individual souls, with those who went before them 
through countless centuries and those who will come 
after them. How is it possible to think of even the 
best of them living on forever in friendly relations 
toward one another in the heavenly commonwealth, or 


18 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


of the great majority suffering together in a place of 
torment? 

The magnitudes and distances of the stars also add 
their quota to the confusion of the man of modern edu- 
cation. Nor is it surprising that the discovery of the 
evolutionary process has aroused such intense and pro- 
longed opposition by those who are governed by their 
emotions. After the-biologist and philosopher have 
made their fullest and most eloquent plea and have 
been granted a favorable decision before the judgment- 
seat of Fact, none can deny that a glory has departed 
from man’s estate. To be the specially created child 
of God gives a rank and station incompatible with ani- 
mal relationships however plausibly explained. 


III 


This frank admission of the difficulties involved in a 
theistic interpretation of: the world should not be dis- 
couraging. The man of intellectual vigor and moral 
integrity is always ready to face the facts of life, and 
to accept their bearings. While a simple faith has its 
beauties, it has also its limitations. It can never resolve 
the perplexities of the thinker. The framework of the 
faith of men who lived in a world they believed to 
have been made in six days is obviously inadequate 
for those who are convinced that man was working 
out his destiny ages before the date when Adam was 
so long supposed to have been created. 

Probably the chief reason for the doubt of our time 
is the failure to realize the simple truth enunciated by 
Jesus, that new wine must have new wineskins. If 
old skins are used, it will burst them and leak away. 
Likewise new thought must have new molds. We have 


INTRODUCTION 19 


been trying for a century to confine our enlarged re- 
ligious ideas to the old forms that were adequate be- 
fore the rise of the sciences of astronomy. geology, 
biology, and modern psychology. Multitudes have been 
too lazy or too stolid to take the trouble to make the 
necessary readjustments in their thinking. This ap- 
plies to those of simple faith, but of bellicose temper, 
who deny that there is any valid reason in the new 
knowledge for changing their outlook; it applies also 
with equal force to many who should know better; the 
men of various grades of enlightenment who do not 
distinguish between an inadequate creed and the larger 
truth which the creed expresses in stuttering accents. 
To see that the world was not made out of nothing is. 
not to eliminate God, though many have made the 
blunder of regarding this recognition as the equivalent 
of such a denial. 

Here then is the seat of our trouble and also the 
ground of our hope. We need a larger God than our 
fathers, because we live in an infinitely larger world; 
in fact, our world is but an infinitesimal fraction of a 
universe. Before we pass final judgment upon the 
meaning of the sorrows and disappointments of the 
human race, we must, as Kant saw clearly and stated 
forcefully, get a clear perspective of the end in view. 
If the happiness of the individual—his success in his 
enterprises and his freedom from pain—is the supreme 
goal of life; if the universe is only a place of pleasure, 
then it must appear that, whatever its cause and origin, 
it is so colossal a failure that belief in divine control 
is impossible. 

But if we take the longest view and look upon the 
universe as the training ground of the spirit, many 
of our perplexities will be relegated forthwith to a sec- 


= 


a 


20 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


ondary place. They will be seen to represent tempo- 
rary or provisional stages in a process whose complete 
justification will only become evident when its fruits 
mature in the form of virtuous souls. This is what 
Kant meant by value or worth—the idea which stands 
in the forefront of his ethics. In his own words: 


Nothing can be conceived, in the world or out of it, 
which can be considered good without qualification ex- 
cept a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgment, and the 
other talents of the mind, however they may be named, 
or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of 
temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in 
many respects; but these gifts of nature may also be 
extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to 
make use of them, and which therefore constitutes what 
is called character, is not good. Because of their lack 
of great convictions, their influence for good is not 
commensurate with their native powers.” 


In this profound insight judgment is pronounced upon 
many of the most brilliant intellects of our time. Deep 
as was the awe kindled in the mind of Kant by the con- 
templation of the starry heavens, still more profound 
was that aroused by the moral law within the soul of 
man. Even the “stars. and systems wheeling past” 
have meaning only as in their sublimity they minister 
to the reflective mind, and thus serve in the education 
of the race. 

From this point of view, all the stumbling blocks to 
which reference has been made are removed or rather 
avoided. If we agree that happiness is not the main 
purpose of existence and that it is only incidental at 


2“Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals” 
(Abbott’s Translation, p. 9.) 


INTRODUCTION 21 


best, the ground is cut from under most of the argu- 
ments of the pessimist. Ifthe end for which the world 
was made is the culture of men of noble character, it’ 
is obvious that we have no reason to murmur or com- 
plain about the cost. The quartz must be crushed be- 
fore the precious metal can be extracted; the grapes 
must be pressed before the wine fills the beaker. Pain- 
ful though the process, it is a part of the price that must 
be paid for the ultimate good—virtuous souls that 
amid the strains and stresses of existence, like seasoned 
timber, never give. 


IV 


Much of the prevalent agnosticism, skepticism, and. 
indifference toward God, is due to lack of imagination. 
When the little creedal systems of our ancestors break 
under the strain of increasing knowledge, it is easier 
to disavow the reality of religious faith than to recon- 
struct the broken shelters. Yet sooner or later the 
reconstruction must be done, for human society can not 
long hold together without the binding conviction that 
there is a controlling purpose in life. If men are but 
the casual outcome of mechanical forces combining and 
recombining, but altogether unwitting of what they are 
creating and destroying, the will to live and to act 
nobly can scarcely be sustained. Marcus Aurelius spoke 
for multitudes when he said: “The world is either a 
welter of alternate combination and dispersion or a 
unity of order and providence. If the former, why do 
I care about anything else than how I shall at last be- 
come earth? But on the other alternative, I reverence, 
I stand steadfast, I find heart in the power that dis- 
poses all.” 


22 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


Because the men of spiritual insight in all ages have 
recoiled from the outrage to their deepest convictions 
involved in the conclusion that love, justice, honor, fi- 
delity, and our other ideals are but the fortuitous ef- 
fects of mechanical forces in a constant process of re- 
distribution, they have always been ready to begin the 
arduous task of reconstruction when for any reason the 
house of faith has collapsed. Adam and Eve driven 
from the comforts of Eden are symbolic of man’s per- 
petual dispossession. No sooner is he established in 
full harmony with his environment, than some cosmic 
tidal wave sweeps him from his apparent security. He 
builds up a system of government that seems to con- 
tain every element of safety and every promise of per- 
manence, only to find in the day of its greatest achieve- 
ment that it is already slipping from its foundations. 
Driven from the garden, man makes a home for him- 
self in the wilderness, tempering his will in the fires 
of opposition’ by the assurance that he is the unique 
beneficiary of divine favor, and that the people who 
are trying to thwart him are the enemies of his God, 
who are to be driven off like chaff before the tempest. 
“The Lord will have them in derision.” Later when 
he learns that these devotees of alien faiths are uncon- 
querable, and that they have become the proud posses- 
sors of many of earth’s choicest gifts, he fortifies his 
wounded faith with the assurance that a day will come 
when the balance shall be restored and every wrong 
redressed. 

No more interesting historical survey could be made 
than that which would show the perpetual process of 
readjustment through which Christian thought has 
gone. An outstanding example is the belief in the 
early church in the immediate second coming of Christ, 


INTRODUCTION 23 


an idea which soon gave way to a rational practical 
outlook upon life; then there was the reluctant accept- 
ance of the Copernican astronomy which at first seemed 
likely to undermine the faith, because it was said to 
contradict the Bible; again the rise of geology forced 
a reconsideration of the age of the earth. And al- 
ways there were those who heralded scientific discover- 
ies with jeremiads, holding that if they were true, or 
accepted as true, they would destroy civilization. It 
is evident that up to the present all such vaticinations 
have proved false. Whenever it has been necessary;, 
the house of faith has been rebuilt on a larger scale: 
to shelter the increased knowledge. This justifies the 
optimistic conclusion that order will rise out of the: 
present disorder so evident in disobedience to law, the 
decay of the family, the breakdown of ancient sanc- 
tions, the declining influence of the church, the lost 
respect for legislative assemblies and courts of justice, 
the strife of religious sects, and the widespread materi- 
alism and sensuality which characterize our time. q 

Disconcerting and discouraging though our analysis 
of present life may be, those whose faith is under- 
girded by a knowledge of history can face the future 
with unperturbed hearts. They know that the idea of 
evolution can be built into the structure of Christian 
doctrine without more difficulty than the revelations of 
Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. In fact, to change 
the figure, it has been already woven permanently into 
the tissue of modern thought. Sooner or later the mili- 
tantly conservative section of the church will see the 
futility of denying what it already more than half be- 
lieves, and will also understand that science is not an 
enemy but an auxiliary of an intelligent faith. Whether 
applied to the study of cosmic methods and processes, 


24 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP. 


the differentiation and spread of life, the rise of human 
institutions, or the growth of the Bible through numer- 
ous gradations of morality and spirituality, science can- 
not but enlarge our conception of the mystery and 
power of the creative intelligence which alone offers 
a key to the riddle of the baffling and overwhelming 
wonder of the universe. 


Vv 


In a sky which is brooding and portentous for all 
who are conscious of the grave dangers which menace 
our civilization, there is one promising rift through 
which the sun of hope brightly gleams. This is the 
increasing recognition of our human inability to cope 
with the evils induced by the almost universal demand 
for material comforts and pleasures. Scientists, states- 
men, jurists, and journalists are joining with religious 
leaders in trying to find some way to quicken the sense 
of God. We have good roads, motor cars, electric 
lights, summer homes, talking machines, moving pic- 
tures, airplanes, and radios. Into the making and use 
of these, many of which are luxuries, much of the com- 
munal effort goes, with the result that our fiscal ca- 
pacity is under constant strain. These things hold the 
primary loyalty of the great majority of our people. 
Theoretically many profess to follow him who has 
told us to seek first the kingdom of God and his right- 
eousness and all necessary material gifts will be added 
to them, but in practice they have reversed the process. 
Seeking first the things of transitory value, they have 
lost sight of those of permanent value. The sinister 
results are evident in war, industrial conflicts, racial 


INTRODUCTION 25 


hatreds, and strangest of all, religious controversy 
and reaction. 

Somehow or other we have got to find the buoyancy 
which is derived from the cultivation of the soul; we 
have got to get back what Dr. Jacks has called “the 
lost radiance of the Christian religion”; artificiality 
and formality must yield to the creative joys which 
flow from simple tastes and high thinking; the ex- 
ternality of our life which now functions in luxury, 


/ 


triviality of interest, the disinclination to think, and — 


speed, must be replaced by that inward resourcefulness 
which is the experience of those who know and trust 
God. The visible world of practical life must be com- 
plemented by the invisible spiritual world of which so 
many have no knowledge. How can it be done? God! 
—is the only answer to this question. He is the one 
medicament for our personal and social ills, the sole 
satisfaction for our needs. He is the only guaranty 
against man’s greed, selfishness, bigotry, sensuality, 
and internecine strife. Until he is allowed to enter 
freely into our sovereign souls—liberating our spirit- 
ual potencies, oxygenating our stagnant ideals, releas- 
ing our nobler impulses—every suggested reform, 
whether it be prohibition, equal suffrage, a world fed- 
eration—or all these institutions combined—will prove 
to be only a makeshift or series of makeshifts. What- 
ever value any new measure or proposal may possess 
is due alone to the measure of God it contains. 
Probably there are those who will take exception to 
the vagueness of these suggestions. It is my trust 
that such objections will dissolve in the light of the 
succeeding chapters. All of these, however widely they 
may vary in subject matter or in tone, are filaments 


26 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


thrown out by a single nucleus,—the conviction that the 
ultimate essence of the universe is spirit, that God is 
not only the source of our lives, but the ground of all 
our hopes, and “the master-light of all our seeing.” 
The restlessness and wistfulness of our age are naught 
but the undirected or misdirected longings of man for 
God as the slumbering deeps in him try uneasily to 
awaken in response to the call of the Eternal. But 
man’s answer will remain incoherent and self-contra- 
dictory until his spiritual sensibilities become acute. 
Then he will learn to look for God, not in the unusual 
and the remote, but in the usual and near at hand. He 
will discover that there is more mystery and therefore 
more reason for awe and adoration in the mountains, 
the tides, the stars, and life itself, with its constant urge 
toward perfection, than in any miraculous events of the 
long ago, even though their truth cannot be gainsaid. 
He will understand that God is as near men to-day as 
in the days of Moses, Isaiah, or St. Paul, and as ready 
or even readier to make himself known, because the 
wider experience of our generation and fuller knowl- 
edge of his laws offer him more points of contact with 
the minds of his children. 

When the Christian man has learned this supreme 
lesson, without losing his sentimental interest in Jeru- 
salem, or minimizing its glories, he will realize that 
his task 1s to make a holy city of New York, Chicago, 
Paris, or London. He will look for evidences of the 
everlasting mercy not only in the Bible, but in the char- 
acter of his fellow men in his own generation—in their 
patience, their quiet heroisms, their frequent willingness 
to die for others, the wonderful, though usually un- 
cultivated, potentialities of their souls, and the efforts 
of faithful workers to establish the kingdom of heaven 


INTRODUCTION 27 


on earth. He will see clearly that if we confine God 
to sacred places far away, or even to churches and 
shrines near at hand, to institutions we call sacred, or 
to certain times and seasons ; to creeds or dogmas which 
claim to imprison all essential truth, or to the pontifical 
declarations of ecclesiastical assemblies, the Father will 
not be recognized when he manifests himself in the 
beauty, the wonder, and the power of the world, in 
the effort of multitudes to act mercifully and justly,— 
and above all, in love with its myriad manifestations. 

Where can man find God, and in finding him, find 
peace, confidence, and ultimate victory? He can find 
him far away and long ago,—but better still, if like 
St. Augustine he looks into his own heart and rightly 
interprets its nobler affections, he will see that God is 
there. That is the greatest of all discoveries because 
it opens the door to another yet more important. For 
if God is in me, he is in other men, in the paths of 
history, and in the uncharted ways of the future. He 
is to be found in “the still sad music of humanity”; in 
the visions and ideals of prophets; in the ceaseless 
struggle of virtue for the mastery of the world, in the 
creative spirit which permeates the universe. ‘He is 
above all, and through all, and in you all.” 





SECTION I: THE GROUND OF 
RELATIONSHIP 


CHAPTER I 
MAN’S NEED OF GOD 


E 


Few famous sayings are more profound than that of 
Voltaire: “If there were no God, it would be necessary 
to invent him.” The thought in the great skeptic’s 
mind is easily discerned. It would be immeasurably 
more difficult to explain the universe without God than 
with him. The world would present an insufferable 
problem were it not that we can at least partially ac- 
count for its mystery by the affirmation that it is the 
work of a Creator of infinite power and wisdom. The 
first activities of a child in whose mind the light of 
reason is beginning to glow are an unconscious effort 
to understand his environment. He touches and tastes 
every object within his reach. He grasps at the moon 
and tries to catch the birds in order that he may learn 
what they are. As he has opportunity, he throws peb- 
bles into the water, climbs trees, picks flowers, and in 
every way within his power seeks to investigate the 
world about him. This motive is of course uncon- 
scious. He does not realize what he is doing, but in 
the process he is building up a body of experience which 
will be of the greatest future value. 

29 


30 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


After a time he will learn something of the continu- 
ity of life and the uniformity of the laws which seem 
to govern our existence. He will see that certain re- 
sults always follow certain actions, that stones never 
fail to fall if they are released, that water seeks the 
lowest level, that fire burns, and the seasons come and 
go—that in short there is an order in the texture of 
the world to which there are never any real exceptions. 
How is this uniformity to be explained? What a prob- 
lem it would be to solve the riddle of our existence if 
there were no integral relation between cause and ef- 
fect, if one day stones fell upward and the next trav- 
eled horizontally through the air or over the surface 
of the earth! Existence would be impossible under 
such conditions. 

The world as it is presented to us in our daily ex- 
perience has every evidence of being made according 
to a definite plan. Everything in it fits into the general 
scheme, and the only reasonable explanation is that 
it is the fruit of thought. If we are shown a machine 
or any object for household use, we have no hesitation 
in concluding that some one made it. We should never 
dream of being so foolish as to affirm that a book, 
chair, or watch merely happened to come into ex- 
istence. In truth, things do not happen. That is a 
word by which we cloak our ignorance of surrounding 
circumstances. There is always a cause. Thus, if we 
are logical when we face the tremendous fact of the 
universe with its solar systems and circling stars all 
moving on schedule time, we must conclude that they 
were made.by some being or group of beings, which is 
simply to affirm our belief in God. Man needs God 
in order to explain the universe: otherwise we should 
be living in intellectual chaos. It is beyond belief that 


MAN’S NEED OF GOD 31 


there should have come into existence without mind 
and purpose, a world which satisfies our deepest log- 
ical needs, enabling us to predict with certainty that this 
result will follow from this action—as, for example, 
when we mix sodium and chlorine in equal proportions 
we get common salt as a result of the combination, or 
when we pass the white light of the sun through a prism 
it is broken into the seven primary colors. Man needs 
God to sustain his intellectual integrity. His restless- 
ness and dissatisfaction in the material enjoyments of 
life are the blind urge of his soul to assuage its thirst 
in the everlasting springs. 


II 


But we also need God in order to explain ourselves. 
In certain moods we are given to thinking of ourselves 
in trivial terms. We sometimes hear the contemptuous 
expression ‘‘only a man,” and it is one which we should 
studiously avoid. The full glory of manhood has yet 
to be painted in the highest colors it will bear, richer 
than any artist has ever yet discovered. True, man has 
much base metal in his composition which too often 
he does not transmute into the pure gold of spiritualized 
character. It is possible to paint a grim dark picture in 
which his bestiality and foolishness are thrown into 
high relief. The cynic always delights in this kind of 
portraiture. The grinning crowd composed of men 
and women of vacant mind, more interested in the 
result of a pugilistic contest or the baseball score than 
in the greatest intellectual and spiritual achievements 
of the age, is a cause for tears. The popular franchise 
is always given for the mediocre and banal in art, litera- 
ture, religion, and every other department of human 


32 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


effort. The prophet and creator have always to wait 
for appreciation until they are aged or even dead. Most 
men never think. They live in a material world and 
the beauties and wonders of the spirit are to them “as 
is a landscape to a blind man’s eye.” They waste their 
powers on trivial objects and in many phases of life 
seem more akin to the beasts of the field than to the 
nobler representatives of the human race. These weak- 
nesses are explained when we recall that man is an ani- 
mal. His life, growth, and death are subject to the 
control of natural law. His fundamental instincts of 
self-preservation and self-perpetuation are common to 
the whole organic world. His conduct is largely or 
altogether determined by his heredity and environment. 
He suffers from heat, cold, hunger, and disease, as the 
animals in the forest and in some cases his kinship to 
them is indubitably proved by his liability to their ail- 
ments, 

Yet this is not the whole story. The preacher is in 
danger of allowing his mind to become warped by 
dwelling too long upon the sinister elements in human 
nature. If he does not guard against this temptation, 
he will have a distorted view of life. ‘This is a par- 
tial explanation of the weakness and futility of much 
of the preaching of our time. It has degenerated into 
scolding because so many of those engaged in it have 
focused their attention upon the baser qualities of 
human personality without seeking to understand the 
reasons for them. These are menacing enough, but 
they do not deserve the major portion of our attention. 
On the contrary, the wisest way of eliminating evil is 
often to ignore it as far as possible and substitute good 
for it. ‘‘Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil 
with good.” 


MAN’S NEED OF GOD 33 


The best process by which this can be done is to 
emphasize the higher values of the human soul. With- 
out denying man’s origin in the dust of the ground 
through which he shares kinship with all living things, 
little consideration is necessary to see the majesty of 
his potentialities. He enjoys transcendent gifts, par- 
ticularly the power of thought which unites him con- 
sciously and spiritually with the highest among his fel- 
lows of every age and place, and gives him an insight 
into the workings of the universe which makes him a 
partner with its Creator. But we never can explain a 
thing in terms of itself, or at least in terms that are less 
than itself. This is a fact which evolutionists of the 
cruder sort have forgotten. Man thinks because he 
derives from a thinker, which is another way of say- 
ing that he is a child of God. If we cannot explain 
the world without God, we find an even greater diffi- 
culty in explaining man without him. For while we 
cannot understand the mystery of the universe in all 
its complexity, there are certain well-defined areas of it 
in which we can find our way about with easy assur- 
ance. Our kinship with the originating mind from 
which it flows is proved by the fact that we think in 
the same terms. It is inconceivable that to God as to 
ourselves, a straight line is not the shortest distance 
between two points. Thus we think his thoughts after 
him because we are his children. This is what is meant 
by the ancient writer’s figure of speech that we are 
made in his image. To be possessed of life, thought, 
will, imagination, and yearning for the ideal, indicates 
a heavenly origin. 

This inference is confirmed when -we take man’s 
achievements into account. His great epic has yet to 
be written, wherein the highest praise will not be given 


34 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


for bravery in war nor deeds of daring as a pioneer in 
hitherto untrodden wilds. This is not to underrate the 
heroism of Hannibal, Wolfe, Washington, or Nelson, 
nor the sublime fortitude of Columbus, Hudson, Peary, 
or Scott, nor to forget the sacrifice of the unknown 
soldier. But more rigorous still in their demands for 
patience, moral courage, and concentrated effort, are the 
achievements of Plato, Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, 
Pasteur, Ross, and an army of other scientists and ex- 
plorers of the mystic realms in which we live and by 
which we are surrounded. Endowed with the same 
qualities though working on another plane are the great 
spiritual heroes of the race, Isaiah, Amos, Savonarola, 
Luther, Knox, and Wesley. Those were the men who 
laid the foundations of our liberty, the temple of which 
is still far from completion. If we would know what 
manhood is we must turn to them rather than to the 
poor wastrel who has lost his way—perhaps because 
he never had a chance. Nor can we account for the 
great personalities who give content and direction to 
the course of history, except by referring their origin 
to something greater than themselves. Hence, the con- 
templation of man, as of every other fact in the great 
unitary system of our experience, pushes us back to 
God. 


III 


Thus far our consideration has had to do with our 
intellectual needs. Since we cannot conceive of ex- 
istence except in terms of reason, our reason must be 
satisfied or life would be intolerable. But reason is not 
all of life. We have emotional needs as well. One of 


MAN’S NEED OF GOD 35 


the greatest of these is the necessity for consolation. 
Man has scarcely come to full consciousness before he 
begins to realize how frail he is. He learns how brief 
is his earthly tenure at best. There is no such thing 
as security against the ills of life. He may invest his 
money with the greatest care but there is always the 
possibility of a social upheaval which will overturn the 
strongest financial institutions. He may be blessed 
with a great inheritance of physical strength, but any 
day through accident or disease his health may be shat- 
tered. Risk is inherent in our very existence. With- 
out warning we may be robbed of life itself or of all 
that we hold most dear by the carelessness or evil in- 
tention of another. 

But even if our plans never proved abortive, they 
concern only temporary values. A few brief years and 
the end looms in the immediate foreground. Our con- 
trol over future circumstances is almost negligible even 
though we had the wisdom to foresee the best. How 
pathetic were the efforts of the ancient Pharaohs to 
secure by endowment the care of gardens in which 
food would be grown for their use to be ready on 
their return to earth! The very ground set apart has 
been desert for centuries, a grim proof of the futil- 
ity of man’s trying to determine the structure of the 
future. 

This raises the question as to whether there is any 
permanence of human values. Is there any source of 
healing or comfort when the soul is wounded by the 
breaking of the home or the miscarriage of its plans? 
Here God comes to our aid and meets our deepest needs. 
Through him we are assured that “if the earthly house 
of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of 


36 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens.” The outward circumstances of life change 
but their spiritual content remains. Truth, justice, and 
love, can never be destroyed, for they are the very es- 
ence of the divine. It matters not what popes or as- 
semblies say, truth is truth and cannot be injured, 
modified, or destroyed. This was what Jesus meant 
when he told the disciples that the day would come 
when not one stone of the Temple would be left upon 
another. Soon that prophecy was to be realized but in 
the process the Christian faith was liberated from the 
bondage of place and enabled to spread out across the 
world. 

The assurance for which the heart yearns, and with- 
out which it cannot be satisfied, never comes from ma- 
terial things. They pass too quickly to give peace. But 
life with its strain, struggle, and disappointment, would 
not be worth while if there were no healing for our 
ills. The place which the Bible holds in the affections 
of the race is due to the fact that countless numbers of 
people have for centuries found in its promises the 
comfort which has enabled them to carry on in the 
confidence of ultimate victory however intense their 
immediate distress. They have felt the contagion of 
the Psalmist’s faith and been moved to share his con- 
viction: “Though I walk through the valley of the 
shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with 
me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me... 
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days 
of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord 
forever.’ Man needs God to carry him over the hard 
places, to sustain him in loneliness and grief, and to 
give him confidence and courage to face the future. 


MAN’S NEED OF GOD 37 


IV 


These reflections lead to the climax of the problem 
we are considering. What are we here for? Surely 
there is a purpose beyond our intellectual and emo- 
tional satisfactions. This purpose is not hard to dis- 
cover. It is to inform our lives with those abiding 
qualities which are derived from God. As we have 
seen, our tenure here is brief. When Thomas Hardy 
was a young architect, he went from cathedral to ca- 
thedral in England, studying their structure and sketch- 
ing their beauties. And as the message of these mas- 
sive symbols sank into his soul, he found that in every 
case it emphasized the shortness of human life. So 
strong was this impression that its thought became the 
undertone of most of his work as a novelist and poet. 
But this very brevity intensifies our task. We must be 
about our business while the day is ours or night and 
darkness will overtake us. Nor is it a lightsome thing 
to do what we are commissioned to do, to take our 
animal nature with its frailty and passion and make it 
a fit dwelling place for the spirit of God. A large 
outlay of energy is necessary before the raw material 
of life in the form of food can be built up into the 
bodily system. And even greater still is the measure 
of strength required to sublimate our passions, our 
hates, and selfishness, and transmute them into no- 
bility, integrity, and goodness. 

No man can reach this height in his own strength. 
Why should I work for the common good? Why 
should I sacrifice my own interests for those who will 
never know me or be conscious of their obligation to 
me if I do? Theoretically I may admit that I am a 
trustee of posterity, but posterity is not at hand to 


38 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


insist upon faithfulness to my trust. Thus the temp- 
tation to act in my own interests alone is so great that 
it often gets the better of me. On the plane of ordi- 
nary human motive, there are many reasons why a 
man should not go out of his way to work for the 
needs of others who have no claim upon him, Take 
the case of Sir Wilfred Grenfell! When a young 
physician in London looking about for a field in which 
to exercise his gifts, the suggestion was made that he 
go out to Labrador and Newfoundland to minister to 
the needy fishermen of those bleak coasts, If his 
answer had been given from the point of view of 
human prudence, we should never have known his 
name. Probably if we had been there and he had 
asked for our advice, we should have weighed the 
material returns that a man would derive from the 
practice of his profession in London, against the ob- 
livion of purely humanitarian service in so remote a 
part of the world. Yet how wrong such advice would 
have been! Because he gave himself without reserve 
to an impossible task, he has the unique reward of 
fame and good-will during his earthly life and the 
assurance that he has laid the foundations of a work 
that shall continue hereafter. 

But such a decision, involving as it seemed the 
essence of renunciation, could never have been made 
in his own strength. God alone explains the moral 
heroism of human nature which finds itself in putting 
the good of others before our own. That in its 
higher forms it is comparatively rare does not alter 
the fact of its derivation, nor reduce its majesty to 
the commonplace. And while most men are too selfish 
to go far out of their way to make a definite contri- 
bution to the promotion of the kingdom of God, every 


MAN’S NEED OF GOD | 39 


normal man is potentially a spiritual hero. That we 
do not become Grenfells and Livingstones in our nar- 
rower domains of action is due in large degree to the 
fact that our sense of God is blunted. Within us all 
are latent qualities of a superb order which will never 
blossom in action until we live in the consciousness of 
the divine presence. Where such consciousness exists 
there is constant growth in the social virtues, such as 
sympathy, public spirit, and the will to sacrifice for 
the common welfare. The impulse from which these 
qualities come is divine. Man would never be other 
than self-regarding were he not a child of God and 
therefore at least dimly aware of his brotherhood with 
all other men. During the Great War a dying Ger- 
man soldier said to an Englishman who was trying 
to nurse him back to life in a shell-hole: “Strange, 
if you and I had met in the trenches, you would have 
tried to kill me for the sake of the Motherland, and 
I should have tried to kill you for the sake of the 
Fatherland, and here you are trying to save me for the 
sake of the Brotherland.’’ “Love your enemies!’ The 
fact that man recognizes the validity of this command 
and sometimes rises to its exalted plane proves his 
divine inheritance and his dependence upon God. 


CHAPTER II 
GOD’S NEED OF MAN 


I 


On first consideration the suggestion will seem 
fatuous or irreverent to many that the God who has 
made this universe should have any need of a being 
so frail and limited as man. We share the Psalmist’s 
amazement: “‘When I consider thy heavens, the work 
of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast 
ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? 
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?’* Man 
prides himself upon his great achievements, yet it is 
impossible for him to create the slightest particle of 
matter. After a few brief years his course is run 
and he returns to the dust from which he sprang. 
And though there is moral grandeur in his courage, 
integrity, and other virtues, too often these break 
under the strain of temptation and his actions belie 
his claim of a divine origin. With all his talk of 
goodness and profession of admiration for such quali- 
ties as justice, mercy, and love, in practice he is often 
unjust, unmerciful, and unkind. Thus the question 
arises: What service can he render to the Being whose 
power and thought are revealed in the procession of 
the stars through the infinite depths of space, and in 
whose mind are hidden the secrets of the universe, a 
few of which man has painfully spelled out in build- 
ing his temple of knowledge? 


1 Psalm 8: 3-4. 
40 


GOD’S NEED OF MAN 41 


But though the value of man to God seems negative 
in the light of this contrast between their respective 
powers, it would be a grave blunder to jump to the 
conclusion that there is no service for him to render. 
It is always a mistake to dwell too much upon our 
weaknesses. Of course the wise man takes these into 
consideration. He does not allow himself to dwell in 
a world of illusion in which he is not aware of his 
defects. But on the other hand, he takes account of 
his assets and does not undervalue them. It is no 
insignificant thing to have the power to look before 
and after and to realize that in sacrifice and response 
to what is true man shares the divine nature. That 
we are here in the world and have somehow or other 
been brought into existence is a proof that God has 
need of us. Nor should we allow the fact that he is 
infinite and we so finite to blur our vision of our 
essential relationship with him. A drop of water 
from the ocean shares the qualities of its infinite 
source, and since we are derived from God we must 
possess values that give him an interest in us. He 
is spirit but so are we in our deepest reality. In that 
we have the key to the service we can render him, 


II 


Let us approach our perplexing question by an 
analogy. Here is an artist who has just painted a 
picture. It may not be a great work but it is the 
best that he can do. Into its making he has poured 
himself. He feels the ecstasy of creation, the radiant 
joy of having transferred his idea to the canvas and 
given it permanent and beautiful form. But his own 
admiration is not enough. If that were the only re- 


42 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


ward few great pictures would ever have been painted. 
He shows his creation to his friends and if they appre- 
ciate its merit his delight is increased. Again he ex- 
hibits it to larger numbers including many a stranger 
and, if they confirm the estimate already given, his 
heart is further gladdened, and he is inspired to 
greater effort. This is true in any field in which man 
works. The soul hungers for appreciation and, where 
it is withheld, the best effort is impossible. The 
tragedy of our industrial system is that it dooms mul- 
titudes to non-creative tasks in which their only com- 
pensation is financial. A few motions over and over 
again year after year neither elicit self-appreciation 
nor the appreciation of others and so their best 
powers wither within them. The wonder is that so 
many of our industrial workers retain so much vigor 
of mind and soul. | 

This inherent need of appreciation on our part 
should enable us to grasp in however dim and vague 
a way God’s need of our appreciation. Into the uni- 
verse which he has made, he has put his best. Its 
orderliness, beauty, grandeur, and truth, are perpetual 
sources of wonder even to himself. Its integrity is 
revealed in the continuity of its laws. But the Su- 
preme Artist is not completely satisfied with his own 
artistry. He would also have appreciation. That is 
the meaning of worship. He wants our adoration and 
will not be satisfied until he receives it to the full. 
This is the reason he never leaves his children even 
though they try to escape him. 


Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither 
shall I flee from thy presence? 

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I 
make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 


GOD’S NEED OF MAN 43 


If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in 
the uttermost parts of the sea; 

Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right 
hand shall hold me.’ 


Man yearns for God, but the converse is equally true: 
God also yearns for man, and is always drawing him 
from his thoughtless wanderings back to the paths 
of goodness. Man’s restlessness is the index of God’s 
pull upon his heartstrings. This is the truth so mag- 
nificently expressed by Francis Thompson: 


I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; 
I fled Him, down the arches of the years; 
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways 
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears 
I hid from Him, and under running laughter. 
Up vistaed hopes I sped; 
And shot, precipitated, 
Adown Titanic glooms of chasméd fears, 
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. 
But with unhurrying chase, 
And unperturbed pace, 
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, 
They beat—and a Voice beat 
More instant than the Feet— 
“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.” ® 


Iil 


Another and equally basic need of God is that man 
should work for the fulfillment of the divine purpose. 
He has laid upon him the task of working out his 
own salvation. For ages man has been climbing up- 


2Psalm 139. 
3“The Hound of Heaven.” 


AAs THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


ward from the depths of bestiality, error, superstition, 
and ignorance. He has been building the temple of 
civilization which is still far from completion and in 
many parts is falling into ruin while yet in process of 
erection. In this colossal task he labors without plans 
or specifications and moves on in apparent blindness, 
now building on poor foundations noble structures 
doomed to topple over, again laying unshakable foun- 
dations for the future. But in every step forward 
man is impelled by an inner force which makes him 
dissatished with all that falls short of what is true 
and right. He strives for perfection though it seems 
further away with every advance he succeeds in mak- 
ing. He is rarely sure of the next step, and finds 
himself continually at the crossroads. But he has to 
make his choice and, when we take account of his 
ignorance, the wonder is that he does so well. The 
greatest statesmen do not know the way; they walk 
by faith, Yet whether men are conscious of it or 
not, and whatever their position, they are working 
for God when they discharge the humblest duties. 
Often we hear the phrase “Christian work” used as 
though it were restricted to distinctively religious 
activities. Such a limitation is wrong. Christian 
work is faithful service in any field of endeavor. As 
George Herbert so truthfully said: 


A servant with this clause 
Makes drudgery divine; 

Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws 
Makes that and the action fine.* 


God needs every man whatever his capacity, whether 
he is rich in mind or slow of understanding and lack- 


4“The Elixir.” 


GOD’S NEED OF MAN 45 


ing in spiritual sensibilities, to do the world’s work. 

This does not mean that honest effort in facing the 
primary responsibilities of life cancels all our obliga- 
tions. Men often speak of paying a hundred cents 
on the dollar in meeting their debts as though that 
would guarantee a clear title to excellence of character. 
Though essential, honesty is only the beginning of 
Christian duty. Every one has social obligations. The 
welfare of the community is a burden that should be 
distributed upon all its members in proportion as they 
are able to carry it. Any one who evades his fair 
share of the support of the orphan and the widow, the 
sick, the lame, and blind, is failing to rise to the level 
of duty which alone justifies his existence. Yet it is 
sadly true that large numbers of people who live on 
the best that the world has to give never think of help- 
ing their less fortunate fellows and allow their more 
charitable neighbors to carry their share of the burden. 
But God needs their help here no less than in the more 
prosaic tasks of selling merchandise and plowing 
fields. His heart must carry a constant load of grief 
because so many of his children who have strength, 
leisure, and capacity, fail to heed his call and there- 
fore do not find him, and failing in that great quest 
fail to find themselves, 


IV 


Again God needs man as a vehicle of his revelation 
to the forthcoming generation. For ages slowly but 
inevitably man has been pushing back the curtains of his 
ignorance. He has been grasping eagerly for new 
truth. He has unlocked many a mysterious door, 
until at last he has at his command a vast body of 


46 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


knowledge. Starting with nothing, in a state in 
which he was scarcely able to distinguish between 
himself and the world around him, he has groped his 
way upward through the darkness to a height from 
which he can survey vast realms of truth. He knows 
something of his own past, and can describe the proc- 
esses by which the world came to its present form. 
He has learned the wonderful complexity of matter 
and, while its ultimate secret is still far off, he has the 
satisfaction of knowing that he is on the trail of truth. 
He can avoid many a false lead because of the knowl- 
edge he has inherited from the pioneers of an earlier 
generation. He has freed himself from many a cruel 
superstition by his grasp of the continuity of law. 
When the thunder roars ominously and the lightning 
flashes, he understands that no capricious spirit is 
trying to smite him. When pestilence appears in the 
neighborhood, instead of looking for an explanation 
in an offended deity, he begins to search for the 
inimical bacteria or amceba which is the cause of the 
contagion. Slowly but with steady inevitability he is 
experiencing the cumulative power of the words of 
Jesus: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall 
make you free.” 

In every discovery, whether in astronomy, geology, 
physics, chemistry, biology, or psychology, man is being 
used of God for the advancement of the divine pur- 
pose. The power by which he rises above the level 
of his own past is not his own. He can no more 
create an idea than a tree or any other organic or 
inorganic thing. Each new truth which comes within 
the ambit of his mind is drawn there by the power of 
the indwelling God. Thus man is used by his Creator 
as the instrument by which his increasing purpose is 


GOD’S NEED OF MAN AT 


made known. For every revelation that God has ever 
given has been given through the medium of the hu- 
man mind, How else did the Bible come into being? 
We speak of it as the divine revelation, but that should 
not blind us to the manner in which it was given. The 
spirit of truth working like leaven in Moses, Isaiah, 
St. Paul, and many another consecrated soul, gave them 
the knowledge of salvation which liberated them from 
the bondage of error, and as they transmitted it to 
others, this knowledge was added to the ever growing 
spiritual capital of the race. Once the Bible was a 
few of the older books of the Old Testament. Later 
to these were added various literary strata, until at 
the Council of Jamnia in the year 90 A.D. the Jewish 
fathers decided officially upon the canon. In their 
deliberations they used the same mental processes as 
those which would be used by an ecclesiastical council 
to-day, accepting and rejecting the books proposed by 
majority votes. 

The New Testament was also of slow growth. 
Probably the first collection of its books was the bring- 
ing together of the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, 
and St. Luke,—the synoptics as they are called. To 
these were added a collection of the letters of St. Paul 
and subsequently the various other writings which 
make up the whole. But the singular fact for us to 
bear in mind is that in this process, the men who did 
the work, first in experiencing God, and then preserv- 
ing that experience in writing and later deciding what 
should be kept as authoritative and what eliminated as 
of lesser value, were living in time and subject to 
the same limitations as those under which we labor. 
Neither Isaiah nor St. Paul had any realization that he 
was writing scriptures for us. They were doing the 


48 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


work of their day. In each of them the man and the 
hour met. True, they had a profound sense of their 
vocation, but that did not enable them to realize the 
outstanding role they would play in succeeding ages 
and in civilizations vastly different from theirs. When 
the Psalmist wrote the twenty-third psalm, his feel- 
ing and motive were akin to those of George Matheson 
when out of a heartbreaking experience transfigured 
by an unshakable hold upon God, he put us forever 
in his debt by expressing our faith in the hymn—“O 
Love that wilt not let me go.” 

The practical implication of these facts is plain: 
God’s needs and methods are the same in every age. 
All truth has not yet been made known. What man 
has learned is small in contrast with what is yet to 
be learned. Dr. Banting, working in a laboratory 
in Toronto, urged on by the inherent desire to ex- 
plore an uncharted field, learns how to relieve and 
perhaps to cure multitudes of his fellow men who suf- 
fer from a dread scourge. He is a living instrument 
of God used for this purpose, and because of his liv- 
ingness 1s a partner with God in its fulfillment. Few 
men, however, are called upon to make an important 
discovery, or to impress their generation with suffi- 
cient weight to transmit their influence to succeeding 
ages and gain momentum in the process like Isaiah 
and St. Paul. But this should not obscure the truth 
that every one may be an agent of the divine revelation. 
In making known the gospel of love, brotherhood, and 
redemption, God needs the support of the humblest 
of his children. Every one may become a luminous 
center radiating spiritual energy that will prove a 
source of life to strengthen the wavering purposes of 
his fellows. Every one is potentially a center of reve- 


GOD’S NEED OF MAN 49 


lation to make known the majesty of manhood when 
it is in conscious communion with God—the source 
of all life and the fountain-head of all being. 


Vv 


There is a definite goal to which all these forms of 
human service lead. This is the ultimate purpose 
which God has in view. He is working for the com- 
plete emancipation of his children from every tend- 
ency that hinders the full development of their powers. 
To each man he has entrusted a portion of himself. 
With all our frailties we are “light sparkles of the 
divine.” What the old theologians called “the glory 
of God” can never be consummated until man has won 
all the increment possible from the nurture of his 
gifts. His talents may be five or two or one, as in 
the parable of Jesus, but he must make them as many 
as they can become or the divine purpose is that far 
thwarted. 

Thus the call to comradeship with God, to work, 
and to ordered study of the mysteries in which we live 
and by which we are surrounded, is sent to quicken 
in our minds a sense of our responsibility in the build- 
ing of the Eternal City which is never absent from 
God’s mind. Perfection is always his aim. He is 
never satisfied with what man has done because he 
has such a clear vision of the best. Hence no part 
of the human race has yet reached a condition upon 
which he has put the stamp of his approval and said: 
“Here is finality.’ Even when great heights were 
won, as in Greece and Israel, they only opened up new 
vistas and suggested new endeavors. For a time our 
forefathers believed that they had reached the ideal, 


50 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


in the new republic they had founded. Our present 
discontents and many clashing interests reveal how far 
they were mistaken. Our eyes have since been opened 
to numerous injustices no less glaring than those 
against which they struggled, but of which they were 
not conscious. Chattel slavery, intemperance, religious 
intolerance, are examples. And before these are fully 
remedied, a better educated social conscience will rec- 
ognize others which must be expunged from our life. 
Thus the process runs on into the future where the 
towers of the ideal city can be dimly seen as God 
brings their outlines into view to encourage his fellow 
laborers, and to indicate the tasks before them. The 
man of full stature realizes his obligations to pos- 
terity. In trying to meet them he is paying his debt 
to those who went before him in the only coin he 
possesses and answering the call of God for his 
support. 


CHAPTER III 
GOD'S FAITH IN MAN 


I 


Faith in God is a familiar idea with which every 
one is acquainted, whatever his disposition or attitude 
of mind. But God’s faith in man is an idea to which 
most men have given little thought, or to which they 
are entirely unaccustomed. Yet even a cursory analysis 
of the relationship in which God stands to man will 
show that he is actuated by an unflagging faith in his 
children—a faith which has withstood multitudes of 
disappointments and is capable of bearing any possible 
strain to which it may be subjected. 

Nor is God’s faith in man different in quality from 
man’s faith in God. They are complementary aspects 
of the one underlying reality. Faith contains at least 
two elements. It is first an affirmation of truth, and 
secondly, a surrender of the will to that truth, or what 
is popularly denoted belief on the one side and 
trust on the other. Roman Catholic theology empha- 
sizes the first of these elements and Protestant the- 
ology the second, though in some Protestant sects 
faith is regarded as a body of doctrine no less rigid 
than that of Roman Catholicism, while in others, the 
stress is put upon trust, resulting in a blind and im- 
practical emotionalism. 

Faith is a New Testament rather than an Old Tes- 


tament virtue. The reason for this lies in the sov- 
51 


52 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


ereign place of law in the older era. What God was 
believed to require of men in the earlier stages of 
their development was that they should fear, serve, 
love, and obey him. It was assumed that they would 
believe his word. And in the teachings of Jesus the 
emphasis is not so much upon belief as upon action. 
“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to you, do ye even so to them.” “This do, and thou 
shalt live.” Jesus speaks in such clear, universal, and 
self-evident terms, that the question of unbelief hardly 
occurs. Men do not dispute over the axioms of geom- 
etry or the multiplication table. It is a tragedy that 
the Christian thought of the intervening centuries did 
not retain the pristine simplicity of the gospel. If 
such had been the case there would be only one church 
with complete liberty of opinion, just as nationality 
allows freedom of political opinion, instead of the 
confused babel of strident voices which Christendom 
presents to-day. While Jesus often uses the word 
faith in his teaching, it has the meaning of trust in 
himself and in God. But with the rise of theological 
explanations of him and his work, the idea of faith 
became increasingly intellectual. With the death of 
Jesus, the gospel was preached as a message to be be- 
lieved, involving acceptance of the truth that he was 
the Messiah. St. Paul shared this conviction with his 
contemporaries, but he was a pioneer in that he 
worked it out on a reasoned basis, and tried to give 
it an adequate description. With remarkable insight 
and force of statement he gathered together the great 
experiences of Jesus, in the cross, the grave, and the 
resurrection, and argued that men must be united to 
Christ by faith and share his experiences if they are 
to realize the redemption he offers. Thus in the teach- 


GOD’S FAITH IN MAN 53 


ing of St. Paul the two sides of faith are set forth, 
knowledge and trust, which result in a mystical union 
of the believer and Christ. 


II 


Obviously it would not be correct to say that God 
believes in man in the sense of accepting any body of 
truth which man has formulated. When we use the 
word faith to describe his attitude toward man, the 
emphasis lies on the idea of trust. He must have had 
faith in man as a means of self-expression, or he 
would never have taken the trouble to bring him into 
existence. For ages God worked to prepare a world 
upon which living things could subsist. At last it was 
ready for human life, after it had passed through 
many stages of development and refinement. Then 
the Creative Spirit formed man out of the dust of 
the ground as the fruit of an agelong process. Nor 
was the climax reached. Man was not all that the 
divine artificer desired. He was far from perfect. 
The noblest of men falls pitiably short of the glory 
that God has in mind for his children. But the fact 
that he has made man proves his faith in him. Man 
is the work of God’s own hands and we are reason- 
ably safe in assuming that he will not forsake his 
handiwork. 

Again, God’s faith in his children is revealed in the 
wonderful powers he has bestowed upon them. He 
has given them dominion over the earth. They think 
his thoughts after him. They have the capacity to 
look behind across the ages spent in their journey up- 
wards, and forward into the future that is yet to be. 
So rich an endowment cannot be explained except upon 


54 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


the grounds of God’s belief in the investment he has 
made. For man’s abilities have not been improvised 
by his maker. They are the fruitage of long and 
strenuous thought which at last took shape in a form 
which reveals the divine image. Man’s own creations 
are ineffably precious to him. He treasures the works 
of his hands. Yet this is not creation in the deepest 
sense for the most gifted of men can not bring into 
existence a single particle of matter, nor create the sim- 
plest form of life. What we call creation is only the 
reassembling and ordering of materials already at 
hand. Our best work is only a faint reflection of 
divine creation but, since we share the divine nature, 
we are reasonably safe in assuming that God also looks 
upon his own work with some degree of satisfaction. 

Probably the surest proof of God’s faith in man 
is given in the wonderful way in which he has trusted 
him to work out his own salvation. He has given 
him the liberty to choose his own course. While al- 
ways holding before him the glory of the heavenly 
vision and planting in him an impulse to obey it, he 
has nevertheless left him free to make his own deci- 
sions. This is the meaning of the story of Eden. 
Man was placed in the garden with assurances of 
every blessing if he obeyed the will of God, but no 
constraint was used to compel his obedience. The 
reason is obvious. Force is utterly destructive of per- 
sonality. If God had made a world in which his chil- 
dren had no choice, it would not be a moral world. 
There would be no virtue in their correct actions. Yet 
foresight was unnecessary to see that they would often 
go sadly astray, as indeed they have been doing through 
the ages. What colossal blunders man has made, 
bringing disaster upon himself! But God has never 


GOD’S FAITH IN MAN 55 


forced his will upon man even in the face of the 
greatest calamity. The only constraint brought to 
bear upon him is that derived from the educative 
value of suffering. Man learns by his mistakes, but 
having learned he has his reward in the iron in his 
blood which would be utterly lacking if his goodness 
were due to his lack of choice. 

Yet, on the whole, the human race has been very 
slow in realizing the wisdom of this freedom. Men 
often deny to their fellows the very gifts they have 
received from God. ‘They do not show the trust in 
them which God has bestowed upon all. This lack 
of trust is indicated in every attempt to control opinion 
by duress or to restrict the course of the future. 
Every theological controversy has its roots in the un- 
willingness of at least one party in the church to ac- 
knowledge the sincerity of their neighbors. What is 
not seen is that such efforts are in violation of the 
divine trust which is our common inheritance; and 
that if successful, they will work irreparable injury 
to those who, owing to weakness or on grounds of 
expediency, conform to the popular will. To make a 
man say “I believe,” when no new light is given to him 
is bad both for the man and for those who exercise 
the compulsion and also for the cause they represent. 

Such compulsion is often attempted in the effort to 
control the future. In London there are many ancient 
churches which have long since ceased to render any 
service to the community but which are continued be- 
cause some short-sighted donor established a trust for 
their continuance with the condition that if they should 
cease to function or be removed to another locality, 
the funds of the establishment would revert to his 
descendants. Wherever there is a trust, however fool- 


56 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


ish, there are always those who are ready to admin- 
ister it, so that the welfare of the community is checked 
because of such failures to allow the wisdom of a suc- 
ceeding generation to find its own way. Not far from 
Philadelphia, near the center of a beautiful church 
lawn, there stands an ugly old building. It was the 
original church and together with the grounds was the 
gift of one man a generation or more ago when the 
neighborhood was poor. Meantime it has become a 
wealthy suburb, The old church is altogether inade- 
quate, but when a new structure was planned, it was 
found that in the title deed there was a clause which 
prevented it being torn down without loss of the entire 
property. So the new church was built on one side 
and the old one still remains, a permanent blot upon 
a scene that would otherwise be beautiful. 

God never makes that mistake. He trusts his fu- 
ture children not less than those of the present, for he 
has confidence to believe that there will be at least as 
much wisdom to-morrow as there is to-day. He knows 
that life is in a constant flux; that new lights often 
appear, changing the face of the old landscapes, and 
requiring the readjustment and modification of our 
old ideas to meet the new situations. Nor does he 
shrink from the cost which is involved in this trust. 
It is often misused. Tragic blunders occur. The 
world is grievously slow in learning that righteous- 
ness, holiness, and love, are immeasurably stronger 
and more effective than material power. But God 
trusts men even in the long and painfully disastrous 
processes by which they learn. When Nikolai Lenine 
was a young man of eighteen, his elder brother who 
had been his teacher and hero was put to death by 
the Czar’s government after a summary trial for hav- 


GOD’S FAITH IN MAN 57 


ing taken part in a revolutionary plot. The burning 
sense of injustice kindled in Lenine’s heart prompted 
him to determine upon a bitter revenge and he set 
to work to forge weapons of the mind to undo the 
foe who had robbed him of his brother. How suc- 
cessful he was is now a matter of history. If the 
Russian government of the generation preceding the 
Great War had trusted the people, there would have 
been no revolution. Yet through all the pain, sorrow, 
and death, God never loses faith in man’s ultimate 
victory. Some day a greater Russia will arise out of 
the present chaos and tragedy. Only those who are 
lacking in faith in their fellow men, and forgetful that 
their neighbors are God’s own children, allow them- 
selves to fall into bitter reproaches in speaking of 
their mistakes. To lack faith in man is to deny God. 


Til 


God’s faith in man is strikingly exhibited upon the 
darker backgrounds of history. When the star of 
human hope sinks below the horizon as it has done 
occasionally in every nation and even over the whole 
world, the man who can guide the people to their des- 
tiny never fails to emerge. Usually he comes from 
the most unpromising surroundings; Moses from the 
desert, St. Paul from a Jewish home in Tarsus, Luther 
from a provincial monastery, John Wesley from a 
church which had become sterile in spirit and barren 
in faith, and Lincoln from the crudest of frontier 
cabins. Few of the world’s leaders in any department 
of achievement have arisen where we should expect 
them. Rarely does the man who has enjoyed the best 
initial advantages realize their promise by achieving 


58 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


a position commensurate with his start in life. What 
was there in the home of the boy Shakespeare to jus- 
tify a prophet in foretelling that he would become the 
most colossal figure in the realm of poetry? Doubt- 
less there are multitudes of men who are potentially 
great. This accounts for the dreams and vague im- 
aginings which stir their hearts. But when a man 
rises far above the common level and becomes a heroic 
figure, his achievement is not to be explained alone 
by his superior worth. The hour calls out his latent 
powers, and he is upheld by those of kindred mind. 
Shakespeare inspires only because there is a poet in 
us all. Greatness consists not alone in intrinsic 
strength, but also in the multitudes of aspirations of 
ordinary men which take form and meaning as they 
gather around the figure of the hero. Lincoln grows 
greater year by year and is credited with a wisdom 
and foresight he would be the first to disclaim, because 
men love to give to their own convictions the sanction 
of his name. In this they are not insincere. The 
process is unconscious, but it proves their sense of 
kinship with him, notwithstanding the apparent gulf 
between their powers and his, and it justifies God’s 
assurance that the man will always rise to meet the 
demands of the hour however exacting they may be. 
In the light of these reflections we are on safe ground 
in concluding that God has faith in us, no matter how 
questionable our record. Because we are his children 
he knows that we possess qualities which will enable 
us to stand in the evil hour. The forces of disrup- 
tion are great and sometimes appear overwhelming; 
but greater still are goodness, holiness, righteousness, 
and love. In the end the spiritual always triumphs 
over the material. And with all its contradictions and 


GOD’S FAITH IN MAN 59 


failures human nature is at bottom spiritual. The 
reason men often seem so unresponsive to the higher 
calls of duty and service is due more to lack of imagi- 
nation than to the carnal mind which is enmity against 
God. Thus, for those who can visualize the divine 
faith, it will prove not only a great corrective against 
discouragement but a great stimulus to heroic endeavor 
in those who accept God’s valuation of their worth. 


IV 


The converse of God’s faith in man is man’s faith 
in God. If he trusts us we ought also to trust him, 
for we have a thousand times more reason to do so 
than he has to trust us. He has never failed us, but 
we have often failed him. And while it is true that 
men have sometimes felt poignantly that God had de- 
serted them, on closer examination of the circum- 
stances or on more mature reflection, the discerning 
have learned that they were wrong in this impression. 
That God has never failed the trusting soul does not 
mean that we always get what we want. Rather it 
signifies that he is always with us and ready to sus- 
tain us in any situation however hard. What the 
world needs is a large and intense faith in God. This 
alone will usher in the parliament of man of which 
poets and prophets dream, for in its ultimate inter- 
pretation and application faith in God is faith in 
brotherhood and in cooperation in all the relationships 
of life, whether within the state or in the intercourse 
of nation with nation. This is not to depreciate social, 
political, and industrial programs, or paper plans to 
avert disharmony and friction between capital and 
labor or the quarrels between governments which often 


60 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


break out in war. Such programs, when they are 
worth while, register an increasing faith in God. 

One of the surest marks of a lack of faith is fear 
that the world is going to the bad. Many people are 
convinced that the forces of unrighteousness are in 
full control. In the growth of science, and the changes 
of manners and of opinion which are always taking 
place, as their old landmarks fade, they jump to the 
conclusion that unbelief is undermining the ancient 
foundations. This accounts for the hysteria which 
characterizes so much of our present day religion. 
Defenders of the Bible and of Christ rush forward 
with feverish haste, unheeding of the fact that neither 
the Bible nor Christ needs any defense. One might 
as well speak of defending the sun or the law of gravi- 
tation. The best and only service that can be done for 
the Bible is to incarnate its truth and give its message 
a free field of action unencumbered by any claims of 
its superiority apart from those which are self-evi- 
dencing. This is equally true of Christ. What sane 
man would dream of defending the beauty or the 
fragrance of a rose, or the glory of a sunset? What 
Christ requires of his followers is not defense, but a 
persuasive testimony to his power to elevate the soul, 
and endue it with grace, charm, and sympathy. To 
speak of defending him implies that he is in danger, 
whereas his only danger lies in the indifference or ig- 
norant zeal of his followers who have not entered into 
his spirit, and have no real faith in his method. The 
greatest handicap of Christianity is the unspiritual 
Christian. 

Just as the belief that the times are out of joint and 
the world going to destruction is a proof of infidelity, 
so confidence that the truth and method of Christ will 


GOD’S FAITH IN MAN 61 


redeem the world is a proof of vital faith. Practi- 
cally all the troubles of Christendom are due to our 
failure to take the Christian gospel seriously. Nations 
depend upon their armaments to protect them against 
their foes. Men lose their souls in accumulating 
wealth far beyond their needs because they are afraid 
to trust God in their old age. They appeal to the 
courts to settle their differences instead of coming to- 
gether in a spirit of mutual forbearance and with a 
sincere desire to discover the reasons for each other’s 
point of view. Probably it is too much to look for 
a world from which all friction and misunderstanding 
have been expurgated, but there can be no doubt of a 
great advance when a conscientious effort in this direc- 
tion has been made by a considerable number of the 
makers of opinion in church and state. 

Faith in Christ means the faith of Christ, of which 
St. Paul said: “TI live by the faith of the Son of God.”’ 
And what was Christ’s faith but trust in God, which 
is trust in the fruits of the spirit, which are “love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
meekness, and temperance?” Faith is the surrender of 
the soul to the ideal of perfection—the conviction that 
he who possesses these virtues will win the ultimate 
victory. In the interim he may suffer many a disap- 
pointment, but that will only prove his soul. Some- 
times a schoolboy feels that his father is harsh or un- 
sympathetic when he refuses to help him to find the 
answer to a question set by his teacher, but with the 
coming of the wisdom of maturity he will realize that 
his father was acting in his best interests. Such a 
refusal is a proof of faith in his inherent capacity to 
solve the problem for himself, and a recognition that 
to do so is much better than to have the answer found 


62 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


by another. But when the lesson has been learned there 
will ensue an inflow of power which will sustain him 
in the high adventure of life and enable him to meet 
every issue in confidence. This is a parable of God’s 
method with us; when we are buffeted by misfortune 
and the way seems too hard for us to endure, there is 
no reason that our faith should weaken. We need only 
to recall that these are the processes by which we are 
fitted for wider spheres of action. When the world 
seems to be tumbling in ruin is the best of all times 
for the exercise of a buoyant faith which is after all 
only a spiritualized imagination through which the 
soul sees, glimmering beyond the present darkness and 
confusion, the street lamps of the City of God. 


SECTION II: GOD IN ACTION 


CHAPTER IV 
GOD AS CREATOR 


I 


When many of us of an older generation were chil- 
dren we were given a brief explanation of life through 
the medium of the “Mother’s Catechism.” In that 
compendium of wisdom we learned that God made us 
and also that he made all things. For the moment this 
was satisfactory. The mind of the child is quick to 
accept any proffered resting place, though it does not 
remain there long. As the years went on we saw that 
there were other questions growing out of these an- 
swers. When, why, how, where, and of what ma- 
terials, did God make the world? ‘The answer in the 
opening chapters of Genesis did not resolve the mys- 
tery. It was not specific enough. We were told that 
the date of Creation was the year 4004 B.C. or there- 
about. This was confusing for geology pointed to a 
much greater age for the earth, to leave out of ac- 
count the heavenly bodies which we would naturally 
think of as equally old. 

Nor did it help us much to go to our religious pre- 
ceptors. Usually they tried to silence our questions 
by pointing out the sin of doubt. Rarely did they give 
an answer that satisfied us even temporarily. Their 


attitude was usually like that of Carlyle’s mother when 
63 


64 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


she was asked by her son, then fourteen years old, the 
meaning of the Song of Solomon. She gave him the 
traditional answer, and when he continued, “‘How is it 
known that it is symbolical, representing Christ and 
the Church?” she was shocked beyond bounds. ‘The 
sight of her horror made him say no more. “I saw 
I must not,” he said afterwards, “‘and so I shut up my 
thoughts in my own breast.’’ Needless to say many a 
life has been irreparably hurt by such an attitude. To 
ask questions in a sincere search for truth indicates a 
healthy soul, and when they arise in a growing mind 
they should be answered as far as possible or, at any 
rate, honestly faced. 


II 


There is no denying that our forbears believed in 
the special creation both of the world and man. They 
interpreted the narrative or narratives in the first two 
chapters of Genesis literally. To them those stories 
were copies of the blue prints by which the Almighty 
had worked when in the beginning heaven and earth 
alike “rose out of chaos.” But when researches in 
astronomy, geology, and biology, revealed facts at vari- 
ance with the traditional belief, there was widespread 
discomfiture among the devout. If these new doc- 
trines were true, it seemed to them that faith was no 
longer tenable. No wonder they fought strenuously 
against the light and were often overzealous in de- 
fense of the old ideas. It was in vain. Slowly but 
steadily the new science created a new world, except 
in the cases of those who refused to study the evidence. 
Time was pushed back for millions of years beyond » 
4004 B.C. Through what processes the earth passed in 


GOD AS CREATOR 65 


its creation only the astronomer-geologist can tell, and 
there are great lapses in his reckoning, but all schol- 
ars have long ago accepted the conclusion that before it 
was habitable for man it had been zons in the making. 

The reason our forbears of the past two or three cen- 
turies struggled so hard against this truth is to be found 
in the conviction that it was at variance with the teach- 
ing of the Bible and particularly with that of Genesis. 
Believing that the Bible is inerrant, it was enough to 
demolish any scientific discovery to quote a scriptural 
text which contradicted or seemed to contradict it. 
John Calvin derided the teachings of Copernicus by 
a reference to the 96th Psalm: “‘The world also shall be 
established that it shall not be moved.” John Wesley 
maintained that to disbelieve in witches is to disbelieve 
in God because the Bible affirms their existence. Philip 
Gosse, a distinguished naturalist and contemporary of 
Darwin, turned his back upon the evidence for evolu- 
tion in the belief that its acceptance meant the rejection 
of the Holy Writ. The fundamentalists of our day are 
belated survivors from this era. They have accepted 
the erroneous idea that the hypothesis of evolution 
eliminates God from the world, because it denies crea- 
tion by divine fiat. 

While we should have the deepest sympathy with 
those who feel that the foundations of the faith are 
being undermined by modern scientific methods of 
thought, this sympathy does not justify us in allowing 
them to block the traffic in religious ideas. The forces 
of ignorance, prejudice, bigotry, and superstition, must 
be broken down, and education is the only means by 
which it can be done. Evolution has passed the theo- 
retical stage and must be accepted as a fact, though its 
method is still uncertain. This uncertainty accounts 


66 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


for those differences of opinion among scientists as to 
the relative importance of its various factors, which the 
uninformed seize upon to justify their denials of the 
evolutionary process. But such denials only retard in- 
tellectual progress. They do not affect the truth of 
evolution which is not dependent upon belief nor to be 
decided by majority vote. 

It has already been implied that evolution is not a 
cause. It is simply a process. But an explanation of 
the process is as necessary as if the finished creation 
had been produced instantaneously or in six days in 
accordance with the story of Genesis. Suppose it 
could be proved that, as some maintain, William Shake- 
speare, the actor of Stratford and London, had no 
poetic gifts and that the association of his name with 
the wonderful body of literature that is attributed to 
his authorship was a fraud or mistake. We should 
still be under the necessity of accounting for “Hamlet,” 
. “Julius Cesar,” “King Lear,” and the other dramas 
and poetical creations that bear his magic name. 

Thus, whether the universe was made in an instant 
or was the outcome of an xonic process of develop- 
ment, we are pushed back to God for its explanation. 
Our everyday experience strengthens the idea of its 
growth. An oak tree takes many years to reach ma- 
turity. The human embryo passes rapidly through 
many stages of development which correspond roughly 
with the lower orders of creation. In the growth of 
the child to manhood, he also passes through sociolog- 
ical stages which parallel those through which the race 
has passed in its struggle upward from the cave or 
tabernacle to modern civilization. 

The evolution of man has been irrefutably estab- 
lished. This does not mean that the human stock was 


GOD AS CREATOR 67 


derived from any existing apes, but rather that man 
and apes, as divergent branches, point back to a com- 
mon stem. Man’s life is therefore collateral with that 
of the ape. As Professor J. Arthur Thomson has said: 
“The broad fact is that man is solidary with the rest 
of creation and that the first man worthy of the name 
sprang from primate parents who begat him. And 
there is no reason why man should be ashamed of his 
poor relations. If there is great excellence in him, the 
achievement, there must have been the right stuff in 
those through whom he was achieved.” * 

Strangely enough the advocates of the traditional 
theory of special creation have failed to see that this 
method does not relieve their embarrassment in the 
lower orders of existence. Birds, beasts, and fishes 
must still be accounted for and if God made them by 
his fiat they would still be related to man as being 
derived from a common source of life. Like him they 
are made of the dust of the ground. Thus there is 
nothing disturbing to an intelligent faith in accepting 
the facts of science which prove to all who will con- 
sider the evidence with open minds that man has been 
upon the earth for hundreds of thousands of years. 
The only reasonable objection to this conclusion is, as 
we have seen, that it is at variance with the story of 
creation in Genesis. But the difficulty will disappear 
if we make our approach to the Bible from the right 
point of view. The Bible is not a book of science, but 
of religion. Its value lies in the fundamental fact that 
its constant aim is to reveal God. But this is done 
through the only medium possible in the various periods 
of history it covers, that is, the thought-forms prevail- 
ing at the time. In fact we have not a single story of 


1 The Homiletic Review, January 1924. 


68 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


creation in the opening chapters of Genesis, but two 
distinct stories from two different periods, and far 
from consistent with one another. They were evi- 
dently patched together by a later editor who did not 
take the trouble to rub off all the projecting corners. 
For example, the order in the one narrative is alto- 
gether different from that in the other. ‘This does not 
invalidate their authority in religion, though it does 
exclude them from the category of science. Both of 
these creation narratives bring us face to face with God 
as the ultimate cause of the world and all that it con- 
tains. If we can only get hold of this elemental prin- 
ciple in our interpretation of Scripture, most of our 
theological difficulties will be resolved. We shall no 
longer feel that we are on the defensive when we are 
confronted with the Piltdown, the Neanderthal, or the 
Cro-Magnon man, proving our remote ancestry, but 
shall understand that the supreme fact is the noblest 
man the race has produced. He cannot be explained 
in terms lower than himself, and certainly God must 
at least be as good as he. This brings us face to face 
with the fact of Christ and implicitly with the Father 
whom he reveals. 


III 


One of the great weaknesses of the human mind is 
to seek for a resting place and when it is found to look 
upon it as final. Thus the idea has been widely ac- 
cepted that the creation was finished long ago. The 
truth is that creation is an endless process. God is 
still making man, and a little reflection will show that 
the divine artist has yet far to go before he can look 
upon his work with thorough satisfaction. In the 


GOD AS CREATOR 69 


movement of the wind and tide, in the change of the 
seasons, the growth of flowers, and the flight of birds; 
in the development of the horse from an animal no 
larger than the fox in far-off prehistoric days, the 
creative impulse is at work. God is the ground of 
every prayer and aspiration, of every struggle for 


purity and moral worth, no less to-day than when man , 


first became a living soul as he emerged from his long 
sub-human apprenticeship. 

The confusion which so often arises when the crea- 
tion is under discussion springs from a false analogy. 
God has not made the world as a mason makes a wall 
nor did he make man as a sculptor shapes a statue. 
He works from within outward and is the living prin- 
ciple of the universe—its ground and cause. There is 
nothing mechanical, arbitrary, or capricious, in his ac- 
tivity. He is spirit, the ultimate essence of all reality, 
and therefore endued with the necessity for outward 
self-manifestation. The innumerable forms of life 
upon the globe, instead of being special creations as our 
forbears believed, have all developed from a few orig- 
inal forms or from one into which the Creator orig- 
inally breathed the spirit of life. Who knows but that 
some of the unlovely forms of existence, for which 
there seems to be no reason, represent the blundering 
efforts of the life principle to find a worthy vehicle of 
expression? This would also explain the dinosaurs and 
other prehistoric monsters who once splashed in Juras- 
sic oceans and long since were thrown into nature’s dis- 
card. 

Nor is this suggestion any reflection upon the wis- 
dom or the power of God. There is no perfect man, 
and there are multitudes who are pitiable failures. 
Yet God is in all men, striving to reveal and express 


< 


y” 


70 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


himself in nobility of character. He works under the 
_, self-imposed limitations of his medium. Man is a 
' partner in the creative process, as in fact all nature 
is, and has to pay in the currency of effort and even of 
failure, a price for every advance. 


IV 


Creation implies a goal. Under the divine impulse 
man would never have made his long ascent were it 
not that there is always a higher point for him to 
reach. Our restlessness in our achievements is de- 
rived from an instinctive recognition that we have not 
attained the end. There is still a vast amount of work 
to be done before chaos gives place to order, confusion 
of mind to wisdom, and waste of human effort to con- 
servation, The perfection of the kingdom of heaven is 
still far off. We must work within ourselves and 
within the community for its coming. A thousand 
needs are presented to us every day. Ignorance, super- 
stition, bigotry, greed, disease, and many other evils, 
hold back the coming of the heavenly commonwealth. 
It is for us to work for their elimination, as well as 
for the full development of our own powers in every 
aspect of our lives, morally and spiritually, but also 
intellectually and esthetically. And when we are thus 
working, we are being used of God, as channels of his 
creative purpose. 

The value of such effort on our part as registered in 
the increase of our happiness is immeasurable. Only 
in the development of our inner resources do we achieve 
that harmony with our environment which brings us 
peace. One of the greatest of the world’s tragedies is 
the widespread dependence upon things. Men try to 


GOD AS CREATOR 71 


substitute material for spiritual wealth. It never works. 
Money can not buy lasting position, a good name, nor 
even a temporary happiness that is real. Women try 
to attain distinction by the display of jewels or by 
dress or even by painting their checks to give them the 
semblance of health. The pleasure gained from such 
adventitious methods is always transitory and never 
satisfies. It leaves a feeling of bitterness and disillu- 
sion. As Ludwig Lewisohn has said in describing 
habitués of the theater: “The features are unmolded 
by experience; the soul does not break through... . 
Business and awkward dinners and noisy teas and re- 
serve and repression and decorum and conventionality 
—have left them with a few yards of fur, a handful of 
diamonds, and neither memories nor hopes in their im- 
poverished hearts.” ? 

In sharp contrast with the effort to find happiness 
in material things is the joy which comes from crea- 
tive activity. Real and lasting happiness only comes 
from the building up of spiritual capital. To feel that 
one is wiser, purer, stronger, and more resolute, to-day 
than yesterday is the essence of life. To be assured 
that we are enlarging our inner resources is the one 
guarantee that we are living. As Carlyle wrote to his 
friend Johnstone: “Without increasing in knowledge, 
what profits it to live?” 

The temptation to which many yield is the hope of 
quick returns of happiness. Men are reluctant to take 
the time to lay the foundations for spiritual growth. 
This is the explanation of the widespread failure to 
cultivate the latent appreciations of our human nature. 
The enjoyment of literature, music, art, science, phi- 
losophy, and religion in its higher and less emotional 


2“The Creative Life,” p. 75. 


72 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


forms, is comparatively rare because the majority of 
people are unwilling to undergo the necessary disci- 
pline. The appetites require no technique. This ac- 
counts for the vagaries of popular taste. The thought- 
ful newspaper whose policy is to tell what is true and to 
emphasize only what is wholesome is read only by the 
few, while its rivals which play up every sensation are 
read by multitudes. The crowd is never discriminating 
in its tastes, and the crowd is simply the large majority 
of people, many of whom pride themselves upon their 
culture and are therefore difficult to teach because they 
do not recognize their poverty of soul. 

One of the most fundamental needs of mankind is 
the clear vision which will enable men to see that the 
largest rewards of life both in time and in eternity 
go to those whose activity is creative. This is another 
way of saying that in their hearts and minds and pur- 
poses, the spirit of God has been allowed to work 
freely. The spirit is always seeking a place in the 
soul of man, trying to restore it where it is injured or 
broken whether by accident or sin, to reduce its chaotic 
purposes to order, to bring its scattered vision to a 
focus upon what is true, to fill it with loving sympathy 
for all the sins and sorrows of the world, in brief— 
to create man in the image of God. 

Modern science has broken down the wall between 
the material and: spiritual in nature, or rather has re- 
duced the material to spiritual terms. No man can say 
where matter leaves off, for all our old tests have 
proved inadequate. The radio reaches across oceans 
and into the depths of the earth, through partitions of 
masonry and steel and every other barrier as though 
they did not exist. The only explanation is that every 
material thing is interpenetrated by a spiritual essence. 


GOD AS CREATOR 73 


What is this but God who “closer is than breathing, 
and nearer than hands and feet”? The Creative Spirit 
of the universe is ever ready to meet with our spirits 
and endue them with new life and power, through 
which we too shall become creators of that great com- 
monwealth of justice, mercy, and love, which man is 
always building when the spirit of God permeates and 
controls his life. The world is a theater of divine ac- wv 
tivity. God’s creative work will never cease till man ~” 
“has built Jerusalem’ not only “in England’s green 
and pleasant land,” but here, there, and everywhere. 


“Creation’s Lord, we give Thee thanks 
That this our world is incomplete, 
That thou hast not yet finished man, 
That we are in the making still— _ 
As friends who share the Maker’s plan, 
And sons who know the Father’s will.” 


CHART RAV, 
GOD AS SOVEREIGN 


I 


Theoretically, every one who believes in a personal 
God must be convinced that he is the Moral Governor 
of the universe. Since he created all things, he natu- 
rally and rightly controls all things. Throughout the 
Old Testament this idea of God’s absolute rule runs 
as a unifying principle. He orders the course of the 
stars. He is the potter, and men are the clay which 
he molds according to his will. “Shall the clay say to 
him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?’ “TI will di- 
rect all his ways. . . . I form the light and create dark- 
ness: I make peace and create evil.’ Even those who 
are unaware of God’s existence are unconsciously ful- 
filling his purpose. He girded Cyrus the Persian king, 
though Cyrus did not know him. 

This doctrine of divine sovereignty received great 
emphasis in the Protestant Reformation. It was the 
central thought of Calvin and other reformers. In some 
instances they pushed it to extremes which reduce it 
to absurdity, as when they limited the number of the 
elect to such narrow proportions as to shut out from 
salvation the vast majority of men in every age. Yet 
they did not carry it as far as the Mohammedans to 
whom God’s will is the supreme reality which informs 
everything that happens. To the devout believer in 


Islam, not a leaf falls, nor a serpent bites his victim, 
74 


GOD AS SOVEREIGN 75 


but it is the will of Allah. He drives the poor sinner 
to his crime and rejoices in the penalty he suffers. 
There is no god but God! 

Nor is it easy to escape this conclusion in our think- 
ing if we try to approach the question from the stand- 
point of the sovereign will. Since God is almighty, 
whatever is must be in accordance with his purpose. 
The older theologians fell back upon the Devil to ex- 
plain the evil of the world, but they did not answer the 
obvious objection that if this explanation is correct, 
God must have abdicated at least a portion of his sov- 
ereignty in favor of the Evil One. They tried to steer 
between the Scylla and Charybdis of divine responsibil- 
ity for things as they are on the one side, and a dual 
control upon the other, with the result that their de- 
liberations were nearly always misty and unsatisfac- 
tory. Fortunately they found their solution in a prac- 
tical ethic rather than in a theoretical explanation of 
the divine wisdom, and opened the door to a better un- 
derstanding of the difficulties by their insistence upon 
righteous action. 

Owing to the modern recognition of nature as a uni- 
tary system, it is easier for us than for our fathers to 
see that though God is sovereign, his will is neither 
arbitrary nor capricious. He is ruled by the law of 


his own being. There are many things that he can y 


not do. He can not violate the truth nor undo the 
past. The spoken word can not be unspoken, nor the 
shot arrow recalled. He can not make a two-year-old 
child in two minutes for there is an essential contradic- 
tion in the terms of the proposition, Nor can he grant 
special favors to those who serve him best. They must 
accept as their reward the consciousness of his pres- 
ence. His laws are applied to all alike. The rain falls 


— 


76 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


on the evil and the good. The earthquake destroys 
the mission house as readily as the pagan temple. 

We need to revise our thought about the divine char- 
acter. In many minds there lingers an idea of God 
which makes him akin to an oriental despot. Prayer 
is made to him for special gifts without thought of the 
effect upon others, should the petition be granted. 
When one man wants rain another is asking for fair 
weather. A little reflection will show that the only 
way to avoid a topsy-turvy world is to make the same 
rules for all. | 

We have been too easily satisfied with phrases in 
shaping our ideas of God. Often they dull the edge 
of the mind. We speak of him as omnipotent without 
a clear conception of what omnipotence means. The 
same is true of the other attributes such as all-suffi- 
cient, everywhere present, and most merciful. We can 
learn to say the words glibly enough but the question 
is, How far do they reach? As we have seen, the al- 
mightiness of God does not enable him to abrogate the 
“laws of his own being, to take a stone and make it 
into bread, nor to alter a single fact when once it has 
been brought into existence. What then is the range 
of its meaning? I do not ask this question to answer 
it but as a warning against the fallacy of resting on a 
word as though it solved all our difficulties. The truth 
is that most of our definitions of God are unsatisfac- 
tory because these definitions themselves have to be 
defined. Until men agree upon the exact significance 
of the words they use in their discussions, there is 
nothing more futile than argument upon theological 
questions. A man who denies the omnipotence of God 
before a popular religious gathering will immediately 
find himself in hot water, yet most of those uniting in 


GOD AS SOVEREIGN 77 


the censure would be unable to give reasons for their 
action, nor would they have any idea of the difficulties 
involved. This is not honest. We must strive for in- 
tellectual integrity which is surely as important as 
financial integrity. 


II 


The only legitimate approach to the problem of God’s 
sovereignty is from our own experience. We must 
begin with ourselves, and when we do so we find that 
we are hedged about with so many restrictions that we 
sometimes doubt whether we have any freedom. We 
had nothing to say as to when, where, or in what cir- 
cumstance, we entered the world. We had no choice 
of our parents nor of the capacities with which we are 
endowed. Our inheritance from our ancestors deter- 
mined our color, and in large degree our temperament; 
and our ability to adjust ourselves to our environment 
is also given to us. We say that the social order in 
which we live is blind and corrupt. But we did not 
make it, and if any of us had never been born the city 
and nation in which we live would doubtless have been 
much as it is. This is the truth which underlies the 
doctrine of predestination. Men are pushed on both 
by an inward and outward urge, and what they are is 
determined in large degree by forces beyond their con- 
trol. Thus whatever path the mind of man takes, it 
is sure to bring him up against the inevitable fact of 
God’s sovereign will. 

On the other hand in our experiences we are con- 
vinced of a certain degree of freedom. In the practi- 
cal affairs of life we deal with men as though they 
were fully responsible for their conduct. We punish 


78 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


those who do wrong and praise and reward those who 
are conspicuous in doing right. This means that we 
believe that they are sufficiently free to determine their 
own course. Furthermore we are justified by the re- 
sults, for the assumption of moral responsibility works. 
The only logical conclusion is that within a certain 
narrow but sufficient area of life man has the right 
of self-determination.- 

A reasonable explanation of this freedom is that 
he shares the divine nature. If man had no control 
whatever over his actions any more than he had over 
his birth, there would be no virtue in his conduct how- 
ever good it seemed. When he comes to years of dis- 
cretion, even though his range of choice is limited, he 
becomes a partner with God in the shaping of his char- 
acter. The raw materials of noble personality are given 
him in his native gifts and in the environmental in- 
fluences which determine in a broad and general way 
the outlines of his development. But it is for him 
to fill in the details of the picture by making a right 
choice in the use of his powers. He has to work out 
his own salvation, or he would not be a moral agent. 
It would be short-sighted to suppose that, in this ex- 
planation of God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom, all 
the difficulties have been cleared away. We cannot 
escape the fact that our lives are rooted in mystery, 
nor can we explain how or why we came to be, nor 
say for a certainty what our worth is. God is beyond 
the grasp of our finite minds, but for that matter even 
the finite is inexplicable and is always melting into the 
infinite. The straight line when extended into space 
soon escapes the grip of the imagination as the dis- 
tance becomes too great for our comprehension. 


GOD AS SOVEREIGN 79 


Iil 


We have also another perplexing question which 
grows out of God’s sovereignty. Why does he allow 
evil to say nothing of creating it? How can we recon- 
cile the rule of a God who is good with all the suffer- 
ing which prevails in the world? None whose mind is 
open to the obvious facts of life can deny that in this 
we have a baffling problem. The good man dies with 
his work unfinished in the exercise of a sacrificial min- 
istry, while his bad neighbor lives on in affluence. The 
unscrupulous man wins wealth and honor while his 
sensitive competitor almost fails in his modest aim to 
win a livelihood. The author of the book of Job did 
not solve the difficulty; nor does it seem likely that it 
ever will be solved. But we know enough to be sure 
that we can have no knowledge of good without a 
knowledge of evil. The one is the counterpart of the 
other. As Milton saw clearly, the material out of which 
virtue and vice are made is the same: 


They are not skillful considerers of human things, 
who imagine to remove sin, by removing the matter 
of sin; ... Though ye take from a covetous man all 
his treasure, he has yet one jewel left, ye cannot be- 
reave him of his covetousness. Banish all objects 
of lust, shut up all youth into the severest discipline 
that can be exercised in any hermitage, ye cannot make 
them chaste, that came not thither so: such great care 
and wisdom is required to the right managing of this 
point. 

Suppose we could expel sin by this means; look how 
much we thus expel of sin, so much we expel of vir- 
tue; for the matter of them both is the same: remove 
that, and ye remove them both alike. This justifies 


80 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


the high providence of God, who, though he commands 
us temperance, justice, continence, yet pours out before 
us even to a profuseness all desirable things, and gives 
us minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety.* 


Thus everything depends upon the use to which we put 
our powers. The combative instinct that we inherit 
from our remote ancestors will be sublimated if it is 
directed against social or political injustice, or it can 
be allowed to operate on a low plane of personal trucu- 
lence and hostility. 

Evil is thus the negative pole of good. Light would 
have little meaning apart from darkness. Our work in 
achieving worth of character is to withstand being 
overcome of evil, and to overcome evil with good. 
Owing to the rule of law there is no escape from a 
large measure of suffering which we do not bring upon 
ourselves, and nowhere in the Bible is there any prom- 
ise of such escape. Jesus suffered hunger, humiliation, 
and death. He told his disciples that they would be 
persecuted. He also stood against the narrow and self- 
complacent interpretation of disaster as a divine visita- 
tion upon those who have sinned most grievously. He 
pointed out that there were other sinners in Jerusalem 
beside those upon whom the tower of Siloam fell. Yet 
there are many still who profess loyalty to him who 
are so uninstructed in his teaching as to see in the 
Japanese earthquake a manifestation of divine wrath 
upon a sinful people. Fortunately, the Christian com- 
munity is outgrowing this superstition, though only a 
half century ago, when a part of the city of Cincinnati 
suffered from a flood, some of the clergymen of more 
favored residential districts above the water level ex- 


1“The Areopagitica.” 


GOD AS SOVEREIGN 81 


plained the disaster as punishment sent because of per- 
versity of the poor who lived in the lower sections of 
the city. It is ground for encouragement to realize 
that comparatively few teachers of religion to-day could 
be found who would give such a reason for a calamity. 

But while we cannot explain evil, there is one un- 
shakable position which we can take in the assurance 
that it is all we need to know. This is the conviction 
that while we must accept disaster when it comes 
whether in the form of ill health, broken hopes, pov- 
erty, bereavement, or the failure of our friends, God 
has decreed that we shall always have strength to bear 
it if we trust ourselves to his guidance and control. 
Man’s primitive belief in an ideal state in which there 
was perfect innocence, peace, and freedom from re- 
sponsibility, is altogether inadequate to explain the di- 
vine purpose. If Eden had remained forever, there 
would be no moral worth. Character like every other 
value must be earned and therefore requires the tem- 
pering which comes through pain, affliction, temptation, 
and sorrow. If left to ourselves, we should never 
have chosen one of these harder experiences. No 
mother would let her child bruise himself by falling if 
she could guard every step he takes in learning to 
walk. Few indeed are the objects of desire that we 
should give up for the sake of the benefits derived from 
renunciation. If we could have controlled the circum- 
stances of our lives, who among us would ever have 
suffered a broken home or a bitter disappointment? In 
that event we should all have been lords of the earth 
ruling over growing kingdoms, healthy, acquisitive, and 
self-satisfied, 

Little consideration is necessary to see that in such 
an Edenic world, the noble and heroic traits of char- 


82 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


acter, which make life beautiful and at their best prove 
man’s divinity of origin, would be impossible. Pain 
in its various forms is thus a part of the great disci- 
plinary process which God has established for the edu- 
cation of mankind. It is never sent to indicate his 
wrath or displeasure nor for its punitive effects, but in 
order to temper the souls of men and make them he- 
roic, patient, and sacrificial. And though there are 
many apparent inequalities and mysteries in its dispen- 
sation, we can see enough to assure us that a world 
without tears would be a world bereft of joy. Thus 
suffering as a constituent element in human life does 
’ not indicate a hard inscrutable will on the part of the 
Creator, but is rather a revelation of the universality 
of law. 


Nature, with equal mind, 
Sees all her sons at play; 
Sees man control the wind, 
The wind sweep man away; 
Allows the proudly riding and the 
foundering bark.’ 


The presence of evil also reveals the consistency of the 
divine character in showing God’s obedience to the laws 
he has established, since he suffers in all the sufferings 
of his children, yet works his sovereign purpose out 
through every tear. 

Not long ago two little children of six and four 
years of age, while playing with matches in a loft, 
were burned to death. A Job’s comforter who came to 
the heartbroken parents offered the platitudinous ob- 
servation that it must have been the will of God that 
they should die. It would indeed be hard on God to 


2 Matthew Arnold, “Empedocles on A‘tna.” 


GOD AS SOVEREIGN 83 


believe this to be true. But it is God’s law that if chil- 
dren of that age are allowed to obtain matches and 
play without supervision where wood shavings are 
stored, fires will be started which will sometimes cause 
destruction and death. And while it is true that the 
penalty for parental neglect is terribly severe in such 
a case, we must bear in mind that the lives of all men 
are so interwoven that the cruel cutting down of these 
little ones will probably be the means of saving chil- 
dren yet unborn, 

Thus the doctrine of God’s sovereignty is not only 


the best intellectual explanation that we have of the , 


current of events in which we move and over which 
we have no control; it also opens the door sufficiently 
to justify the poet’s faith. As Tennyson puts it: 


Oh, yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill. 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; 


That nothing walks with aimless feet; 
That not one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 

When God hath made the pile complete; 


That not a worm is cloven in vain; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shriveled in a fruitless fire, 
Or but subserves another’s gain. 


Behold, we know not anything; 
I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last—far off—at last, to all, 
And every winter change to spring.® 


3 “Tn Memoriam.” 


84 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP, 


IV 


It is a singular fact that those who have had a deep 
conviction of God’s sustained control over their lives 
have been the great makers of history. Ours would 
indeed be a hard task if we had no sense of the reign 
of law. The farmer is confident, when he plants his 
seed, that summer will follow spring and bring warmer 
suns which will stimulate the growth of the corn and 
assure a harvest. The metallurgist knows that steel 
will be the result when he combines a fractional per- 
centage of carbon with melted iron in the retort. The 
entire fabric of modern industry rests upon scientific 
certainty. There are no evil spirits to interfere ma- 
liciously with the forces that man sets in motion. Be- 
cause of this definite knowledge we have built a new 
civilization in less than a hundred years. 

The explanation of the influence wielded by the fol- 
lowers of Calvin and those of kindred belief before and 
after them is to be found in the same conviction. They 
believed not only that God rules the world but also 
that he had called them to be the agents of his pur- 
pose. This conviction was iron in their souls. It 
nerved them to resolute action. They were afraid of 
nothing and undeterred by no difficulty because God 
was with them. One and God were always a ma- 
jority. Often this sense of election made them hard 
to get on with, irascible neighbors, narrow dogmatists, 
but it imbued them with power. Their sinews of ac- 
tion were never cut by doubts. We of to-day, who 
pride ourselves upon a wider outlook, can not afford to 
do without the same sense of divine control over our 
lives. This is essential to mental and spiritual health 
for it ensures a purpose in existence. Nor should it 


GOD AS SOVEREIGN 85 


be difficult for us to realize this sense of divine guid- 
ance because science has given us a new revelation | 
which has rectified and enlarged our conception of the 
meaning of God’s rule and man’s responsibility and 
freedom. 


CHAPTER VI 
GOD AS JUDGE 


I 


Throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation 
there runs an undertone of judgment. Soon after the 
great drama of human life had begun, according to its 
chronology, the question was raised as an affirmation, 
“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”’, and 
one of the last and most vivid visions of the poet- 
apostle on the island of Patmos is that of the dead— 
the small and great—standing before God with the 
books opened. But even where there is no direct ref- 
erence to judgment, the idea lies in the immediate 
background, for the ideal always suggests an examina- 
tion of the actual. When a man comes into the pres- 
ence of another who is his superior in character, he 
becomes conscious of his own defects. The Bible is 
saturated with the idea of perfection. Righteousness, 
goodness, truth, and love, form its currency, and when- 
ever our minds make a vital contact with any of these 
values we are constrained to recognize the shabbiness 
of our worth and thus to feel that we have been 
weighed and found wanting. 

It is a commonplace that we do not like to be judged. 
We would escape from the necessity if we could. At 
bottom we are afraid. True, many men are ready to 
compete with their neighbors. The college student 


who has been faithful in his work does not shrink 
86 


GOD AS JUDGE 87 


from going up to the examination. He is confident 
that he will meet the test. But his confidence is based 
upon his assurance that he can do as well as others 
rather than upon a conviction that he is the scholar 
he ought to be. He knows that if he were to be tested 
by the ideal he would fail. 

In ‘Pictor Ignotus,’ Browning has interpreted one 
phase of this recoil from judgment. The unknown 
painter is aroused by the praise which he hears given 
to the work of a young artist, and affirms that he 
could have done as well. He then goes on to tell of 
his early ambitions. In imagination he saw throngs 
following one or other of his pictures through great 
cities, with streets renamed for him in honor of the 
event. But he could not endure the thought of his 
work being bartered and sold by ignorant people with- 
out appreciation of his motive, and used to adorn the 
homes of those who did not understand. So he turned 
to the monastery and there, year in and year out, painted 
the mother and her child upon the damp walls of the 
unending aisles and cloisters, where the portraits soon 
would fade. Yet one is made to feel, without the 
poet’s saying it, that he was unhappy in his choice. 
The suppressed desire to express his talent where it 
would receive recognition however inadequate had 
caused a secret inflammation of his soul. 

The same unwillingness to face reality is described 
by Cervantes in his story of the helmet which Don 
Quixote made for his own protection. ‘The material 
was cardboard, and having finished it, he gave it a 
blow with his sword to see if it would serve his pur- 
pose. But to his dismay it broke in pieces under the 
impact and in great chagrin and disappointment he 
had to set to work again. When he had finished his 


88 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


second effort, he put it on his head and refused to 
test it in the assurance that he had a good helmet. We 
may smile at his naiveté, but in truth the story is a 
portrait of ourselves. How often we prefer a happy 
illusion to the hardship or the distress which the facing 
of reality may bring! 


II 


Little reflection is necessary in order to see that 
' judgment is inherent in the fabric of our existence. 
Before a new ship is put into commission it has to 
make a trial trip. This may uncover grave weaknesses 
in the structure but if they are there the buyer wants 
to know about them before it is too late. Otherwise 
he would become involved in loss or disaster. The 
government, after building a great gun costing hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars, subjects it to a rigid 
test though this may reveal a flaw which will prove 
its utter worthlessness. The insurance company be- 
fore accepting a risk insists upon a careful medical 
examination and also investigates the morals of its 
client. Thus life is interwoven with judgment which 
in its application to human character may be described 
as the effort to find what is true and to make a proper 
estimate of its worth. 

The essence of the matter is that we are all the time 
judging and being judged. We have a certain valua- 
tion of the character of our friends and neighbors and 
of all those with whom we come in contact in any 
way. One man is a musician and, after we have heard 
him play, we give him a rating in our minds. To an- 
other we yield a higher or lower position according as 
he approaches our standard. The converse is equally 


GOD AS JUDGE 89 


true: we are judged by the world. Sometimes we re- 
ceive more than our due, and sometimes less; but one 
thing is sure—we always have a rating in the minds 
of those who know us, and it is usually upon a lower 
level than our own estimate of our character. 


III 


The question may be raised here as to why it is 
that God judges his children. The reason rests upon 
the broad fact that we are his trustees. He has given ~ 
us a great inheritance and he expects us to pass it on 
unimpaired to succeeding generations. It is therefore 
obvious that he requires us to acquit ourselves faith- 
fully in meeting our responsibility and, since his inter- 
ests are so definitely involved, he keeps us within the 
range of his vision. There is something terrifying in 
the thought that we are never absent from his presence. 
Our fathers were dominated by this idea and looked 
upon him as rigorously stern and exacting. But this 
is counterbalanced by his absolute fairness. In fact, 
we have far less reason to fear the decision of God as 
to our merit or lack of merit than that of our friends, 
because he never makes a mistake. His decisions are 
never reversible because they are always just and they 
are always just because he never fails to take every 
relevant circumstance into account. 

This is where men often make serious blunders. Our 
decisions are always in danger of resting upon too nar- 
row a base. A man is haled into court and charged 
with a serious offense. All that the judge wants to 
know is whether he committed the crime of which he 
is accused. From the legal point of view it is irrele- 
vant whether the man was neglected as a child, or 


90 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


warped in soul by an evil environment. The court is 
not interested in his history and would rule out all tes- 
timony that seeks to explain why he grew in such a way 
as to incline him to criminal action. 

But in his judgments God takes account of the un- 


uw known factors which make up the background of life, 


for nothing is hidden from him. ‘Thus an evil action 
takes on an altogether different character from the di- 
vine point of view. God’s court is one of equity and 
it makes all the difference in the world that a boy never 
had a chance. However stern he is, his sternness does 
not consist in meting out punishments for offenses 
that could not have been avoided. Unless we have 
been openly defiant of his law and his love, we are sure 
to fare better with him than with men. How often 
we are misjudged, and how seriously it hurts when we 
are! Our best friends sometimes attribute to us mo- 
tives of which we never dreamed and censure us for 
failures we could not possibly avoid. The absolute 
truth and fairness of God’s decisions inflict a wound 
that is clean, and thus they never leave the rankling 
sense of injustice which destroys the corrective in- 
fluence of many human tribunals. 


IV 


, In addition to his fairness and knowledge of all the 
facts, God has another quality which is often lacking 
in the best of human judges. This is a profound sym- 
pathy which enables him to understand all the sup- 
pressed values of a struggling soul, however baffled and 
confused by failure. Even the worst of men possesses 
gifts that are of eternal worth, though often they re- 


GOD AS JUDGE 91 


main potential and never become actual. This ex- 
plains why in the stress of war or accident a man who 
in civil life is regarded as of little value suddenly re- 
veals himself as a hero. Qualities which have hitherto 
been buried in his subconsciousness blossom in action. 
Perhaps the fault which accounts for the man’s failure 
usually lies in himself, though in some cases this is 
not so. Circtimstances exercise a tremendous pull 
both for and against the realization of our purposes. 
One man chose the right path because of a happy 
word spoken at the critical moment when he had to 
make a great decision, while his neighbor of equal 
capacity but without such help chose the wrong way. 

Then there are the unrealized aspirations of which 
the human judge rarely takes account and to which he 
can never give full value. The world does not know 
the real man—the man who has tried and hoped and 
dreamed and missed the mark. He is rated for what 
he appears to be, commonplace in achievement, devoid 
of imagination, without gifts, and yet he may have 
dreamed magnificent dreams and been on the edge of 
their realization. Even his nearest friends do not ap- 
preciate these intangible values which are never trans- 
lated into material currency. 


Not on the vulgar mass 
Called “work’’ must sentence pass, 
Things done, that took the eye and had the price; 
O’er which, from level stand, 
The low world laid its hand, 
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: 


But all, the world’s coarse thumb 
And finger failed to plumb, 


92 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


So passed in making up the main account; 
All instincts immature, 
All purposes unsure, 
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s 
amount : 


Thoughts hardly to be packed 
Into a narrow act; 
Fancies that broke through language and escaped ; 
All I could never be, 
All, men ignored in me, 
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher 
shaped.* 


When these considerations are taken into account, 
we see immediately how much better we fare before 
the Judge of all the earth, than when the decision is 
rendered by the wisest of men. Only he who is guilty 
of the gravest offense against God and man—the sin 
which is usually hidden from human eyes—need fear 
to come before his judgment seat. This is the sin of 
an unloving heart which aims to exclude others rather 
than to include them within the circle of the divine 
mercy. Unless we have a right spirit all our other vir- 
tues are vain. St. Paul’s matchless hymn of love ex- 
pounds this theme in imperishable terms. The elo- 
quence of angels, faith that would remove mountains, 
charity that bestows every possession upon the needy, 
and zeal that carries the believer to the stake, are alto- 
gether unprofitable where love is lacking. The imagina- 
tion of the world is always caught by any of these vir- 
tues. The eloquent preacher is sure of a large follow- 
ing. <A deep faith in anything will kindle faith in 
others. Large gifts for charitable purposes always 


1 Browning, “Rabbi ben Ezra.” 


GOD AS JUDGE 93 


bring praise, while fanaticism begets fanaticism. But 
behind every such achievement or combination of such 
achievements, as the one informing principle, there 
must be a loving heart or they are vain. However 
grievous his failures, no man need fear to stand in the 
presence of God, unless he has been a stubborn denier 
of the spirit of love. 


V 


When a trial is going on before a court of justice, 
the evidence for and against the character of the man 
who is under investigation is all important. Judge and 
jury are influenced by their confidence or lack of con- 
fidence in the witnesses. Ifa man does not carry con- 
viction in his testimony, he does more harm than good. 
But often the wisest judges are misled. False wit- 
nesses who want to deceive and others who are self- 
deceived tell their stories in every court. As a result 
sometimes the guilty escape and at other times the in- 
nocent suffer. But before God there is no lying. The 
only testimony considered is absolutely true, for he has » 
an infallible record covering every case. When the 
small or great stand before him, the books are opened; 
there are no incorrect entries in them, no additions nor 
omissions. The reason is simple. Every man keeps v 
his own record automatically. The new psychology has 
unexpectedly confirmed the ancient idea that our every 
thought, word, and deed are written down and that 
sooner or later we shall be confronted with these chil- 
dren of our activities. Our fathers believed rather 
fancifully that these records are kept by an angel with 
a golden pen; in reality they are retained in our sub- 
consciousness, so that in ourselves at any time, for him 
who has the seeing eye, there is a final statement of 


94 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


our account complete in every detail and immediately 
available. 

We often become victims of an illusory security 
when we allow ourselves to forget past indiscretions 
or when we seek to compromise with our better na- 
ture by offering the argument that to lower our stand- 
ard once will not matter. Everything we do matters, 
and any act that is weak or wrong becomes at once in- 
corporated in the fabric of personality. Thus when 
later we are subjected to a particularly heavy stress, 
our character is liable to give way. This accounts for 
the startling collapses which so often occur in the later 
years of life and which seem to contradict all that the 
man was before. But the weakness was in his soul all 
the time, though unsuspected, perhaps even by himself. 
Sooner or later every man acts in harmony with his 
subconscious personality. Huis conscious thinking may 
be only superficial, for one who is fundamentally dis- 
honest can quote the proverb, “Honesty is the best pol- 
icy,’ as fluently as his virtuous neighbor. The quality 
of our conduct is in the long run determined by the 
pull of the subconscious mind for it is the sum-total 
of the character we have built up throughout all our 
previous activity, superimposed upon or blended with 
our inheritance. 

In the light of these considerations our position be- 
fore the Judge of all the earth would be highly dubious, 
were it not that ina fair field of action the good so far 
outweighs the evil. While every sin we have commit- 
ted has left its impress upon the mind, our kindly deeds, 
our sense of duty, and our heavenly aspirations tend 
to hold the evil in restraint and to give balance and di- 
rection to the growth of our souls. Hence we should 
not yield to depression because of the memory of even 


GOD AS JUDGE 95 


a grievous blunder; the fact that it is recalled shows 
that we have it in control, and is a partial antidote for 
the evil it has done. Moreover, God understands how 
difficult it is to walk without stumbling. He will not 
require from us more than we can reasonably give. 
Yet the tremendous consequences that may flow from 
any ill-considered act should keep us on constant guard 
against committing any offense that may work ir- 
remediable damage to the soul. There is a tragic so- 
lemnity in the thought that when the books are opened 
every act, whether good or bad, and no matter how long 
forgotten, will be manifest and will count according 
to its weight, as in fact it is counting now, in the de- 
termination of our destiny. 


vI 


In any court of justice there are certain established 
rules of legal procedure which govern the judge in mak- 
ing his decisions. Not all offenses are equally serious, 
and sometimes what seemed to the plaintiff to be an 
offense is not regarded by the court as a cause of com- 
plaint, and the charge is immediately thrown out. This 
will be even more true when our names are called in 
the last great assize. There we shall probably be star- 
tled by the application of tests altogether different from 
those we had anticipated. Many human standards will 
be thrown into the discard. The fact that a man was 
immersed in baptism will be no criterion of worth, nor 
whether he sang psalms or hymns in his worship. This 
will be also true of practically everything over which 
the churches have wrangled through centuries of dis- 
cord. Orthodoxy of belief, whether it embraces the 
apostolic succession, the Westminster Confession of 


96 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


Faith, the virgin birth of Jesus, or the inerrancy of 
Scripture, will count for nothing. The devils believe 
and tremble. No second-hand experience expressed in 
any creed however historic will be a factor in the de- 
cision. What then will be God’s canon of judgment? 
It is so simple that one hesitates to state it. Yet what 
a reversal of opinions a grasp of it involves! To do 


*w justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God—these 


primary duties form the essence of the whole matter. 
God requires nothing further from his children. If 
we have any doubts upon this prophetic revelation let 
us turn for fuller light to the vivid portrayal which 
Jesus has given of the day of judgment, when as 
God’s deputy he shall register every man’s everlasting 
destiny as already determined by his own action. His 
decision shall be rendered upon the simple question as 
- to whether the candidate for promotion was kind and 
just and generous in his relations to his fellow men, 
and particularly to those who were less fortunate than 
himself. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me.’ And the converse is stated with equal force: 
“Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, 
ye did it not to me.” 

These modest ones who form the fulcrum by which 
we are being tested are all around us. They are the 
hungry, cold, naked, imprisoned, both of body and of 
mind. If we would build souls that will stand the 
test of that piercing light which flows from the throne 
of eternal judgment, more penetrative far than the 
strongest of X-rays, we must renounce our false stand- 
ards of worth, and realize that success is not measured 
by the franchise of the crowd. Nor is virtue revealed 
by the repetition of any shibboleth however venerable 


GOD AS JUDGE 97 


and true, but by the self-sacrificial ministry of love, 
especially for the disfranchised and outcast. The Judge 
of all the earth will do right because he will give us our 
rating, not on the basis of what we said but on the 
basis of what we did for the broken and dispossessed. 


CHAPTER VII 
GOD AS FATHER 


I 


While in the Old Testament God is sometimes 
thought of as father, the conception is restricted to the 
people of Israel. There is no idea of his universal re- 
lationship to mankind. The Jews believed too firmly 
in their special privileges to be willing to share them 
with others. And while the symbol of fatherhood is 
used occasionally to indicate God’s relation to Israel, 
it does not hold an important place in Old Testament 
thought because of the greater emphasis placed upon 
God as creator, lawgiver, judge, and sovereign. 

When we pass to the New Testament we find our- 
selves at once in an altogether different and more spa- 
cious atmosphere. From the beginning of his minis- 
try, and even before, Jesus spoke of God as his father 
and the father of all men. In his mind there were no 
limitations upon the idea. He taught his disciples to 
pray—‘“Our Father.” He told them that the sun 
shines upon the just and the unjust, and that the rain 
falls upon the evil and the good. Nor was this an 
empty figure of speech to indicate that ultimately every 
living thing is derived from God. To prove that Jesus 
gave the word its full content, we have only to remem- 
ber his assurance of God’s paternal care expressed in 
the words: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give 

98 


GOD AS FATHER 99 


good gifts unto your children, how much more shall 
your Father which is in heaven give good things to 
them that ask him?’ And if we have any lingering 
doubts as to his meaning, they will be resolved when 
we recall the parable of the prodigal son. In it there 
is no suggestion whatever as to the race of the wan- 
dering youth. He was simply a man who had strayed 
into a far country of selfish unrestraint and when he 
decided to return his father welcomed him back with- 
out censure or recrimination. This is the striking al- 
legory that he used to show the relationship of love in 
which God stands to all men, no matter what their 
time, faith, color, or nationality. And while there are 
glimpses of this universality in the Old Testament, it 
is not until we reach the teachings of Jesus that it is 
disengaged from its temporary and local expressions 
and given full sweep. 

Nor does this mean that there are no variations or 
degrees in the favor which men may enjoy in their ap- 
proach to God. On the contrary the pure in heart, the 
poor in spirit, the peacemaker, the man who hungers 
and thirsts for righteousness, enter into a peculiar in- 
timacy with the Father. Those who do not possess 
these virtues are not banished from his presence or his 
care, but they do not enjoy the same intimate contact 
with him that is experienced by all who strive to ex- 
press his purpose in their motives and conduct. 

In the light of the perfect simplicity with which 
Jesus has set forth this idea, it is strange that the theo- 
logians have built up so many complicated doctrinal 
systems and have insisted upon their acceptance as a 
prerequisite of salvation. The only condition that Jesus 
laid down as antecedent to the full favor of God is the 
decision, “I will arise and go unto my father.’ He 


100 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


formulated no creed. He never insisted upon the 
proper valuation of himself as the pathway to forgive- 
ness. He framed no such formula as the inerrancy of 
Scripture, nor did he ever mention the manner in 
which he entered upon his human career. He does not 
ask his followers to define him but to follow him, and 
the practical service in which they are to find him is 
the same as that which he rendered during his earthly 
ministry and is to be received by his proxies who are 
the hungry, the naked, and the imprisoned. Thus in 
presenting the claims of the Christian faith to the non- 
Christian we can brush away the entire metaphysical 
and theological fabric which has grown up around his 
name and, if we are sincere in our repentance, we may 
enter the presence of God without embarrassment or 
fear. 


II 


The preeminence of Jesus as a teacher is illustrated 
in the easy and simple approach which he always made 
to the minds of those he would influence. If he had 
attempted to define God in philosophical language, he 
would have failed to reach his goal. He always moved 
along lines of thought that were familiar to his hear- 
ers. When he spoke of the sower and his seed, every 
one who heard him knew exactly what he meant and 
gained momentum to follow him in his practical ap- 
plication of the idea to the human soul. This is equally 
true of the thought embodied in the words—God is 
your father—because every one knows what father- 
hood means. Thus, instead of losing himself in ab- 
stractions he found in this word a direct path to the 
understanding of his disciples and in addition he cre- 


GOD AS FATHER 101 


ated an atmosphere of reality to sustain them in his 
absence. 

However, this does not mean that the idea of God 
as father eliminates all the difficulties that are involved 
in our effort to solve the mystery of our existence. In 
one sense the fatherhood of God is a figure of speech, 
for it is evident that his relation to us is on a different 
footing from that of our earthly parents. From them 
we derive a specific inheritance in a specific way and 
though in transmitting the line of life they are doubt- 
less acting as agents of God, this very fact makes his 
relations to us different from theirs. But the main 
point at issue is God’s attitude toward us. As we have 
seen, we cannot explain ourselves except as objects of 
his creative activity ; but having made us, what does he 
think of us? If he looks upon us as an earthly father 
looks upon his children, we are in a much better posi- 
tion to understand him, than if we were compelled to 
think of him in abstract terms as omniscient, omnip- 
otent, or even all-righteous and all-loving. 

To uncover the significance of this idea of divine 
fatherhood, let us make a brief analysis of the same 
idea on its human side. First of all, the relationship 
between a child and his parents is physical. Their 
blood flows in his veins. They gave him his life, but 
that does not mean that they exercise full control over 
the being they have brought into existence. He is a 
new personality with the right of self-determination, 
and while it is their duty to nurture him and direct his 
development in the early days of his existence before 
he is conscious of his powers, this does not justify 
them in construing their relations to him in any other 
way than for his highest ultimate good. In so far as 
they act through a sense of ownership they are wrong, 


a 


102 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


for no human being ever had the right to possess an- 
other. 

We have already seen that the human parent is a 
vehicle for the transmission of life from the eternal 
sources. He does nothing to create that life. He is 
simply its custodian. Ultimately it is derived from 
God, so that the resemblances between parent and child 
are explained by reference to the common source. Thus 
the spiritual qualities which differentiate us from the 
lower orders of creation as we call them, mind, hope, 
faith, and love in its higher manifestations, are proofs 
that we are children of God. He alone is the source of 
virtue and in bestowing it upon us, in such degree as 
we prove our worth, he makes us partners in a divine 
enterprise. As his children, we are born to an imper- 
ishable destiny. 


Til 


All figures of speech break down at some point and 


the fatherhood of God is no exception to the rule. It 


must be made to include the idea of motherhood as 
well. For God stands to his children as the source of 
that double relationship which in immediate experience 
is differentiated into that of father and mother. His 
fatherhood is thus better expressed under the idea of 
parenthood. As we have seen, parenthood involves care 
and responsibility for the offspring. The aim of every 
true father is to do the best he can for his child. He 
strives to teach him the right way to meet the difficul- 
ties and temptations of life. He aims to give him the 
benefit of his own larger experience so that he will 
not undergo the necessity of learning by the pain of 
stumbling drearily along the wrong track. He holds 


GOD AS FATHER 103 


before him the great achievements of those who have 
won success in their labors. His thought centers con- 
tinually around the welfare of his child. 

This is even more true of God in his relation to his 
children. He wants them to be perfect in their vari- 
ous spheres of action, in accordance with the equip- 
ment with which he endowed them at the beginning of 
their lives. But he never makes the mistake of the 
sentimental father or mother who yields to the impor- ” 
tunities of his offspring and bestows gifts that they 
have not earned. Man must work out his own salva-, 
tion, and the way is long and arduous. God helps him 
only when he helps himself. He has given him visions 
of the ideal commonwealth he would have him establish. 
Every now and then fore-gleams of the Eternal City 
flash across his vision to inspire him, but by his own 
effort he must cross the wastes between his present state 
and the ideal. God will not lift him over his difficul- 
ties for then he would not appreciate his new blessings. 
There is no royal road to learning nor to any other 
gift. Though a rich man may collect a vast library 
containing every book of any worth in the world, the 
contents will remain unmastered save as he brings to 
bear upon them the disciplined attention of the scholar ; 
multitudes of poor men will still be richer in knowledge 
than he. Material possession is no index of spiritual 
appropriation, and with God it is spiritual appropria- 
tion only that counts. This is why he requires the 
human race to work out its own destiny. 

But in the process he is never a disinterested observer. 
His love is a constant urge in the life of his children 
that they may do their best. Always before them he 
holds the ideal. They never reach it, but it serves its 
purpose in drawing out their highest powers and in- 


104 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


spiring them to holier action. He gives them constant 
encouragement in the form of new light as they grad- 
ually push back the curtains of ignorance and supersti- 
tion, opening the door to new achievements as they 
banish disease, master and harness the powers of na- 
ture, and in various ways prepare a more spacious 
dwelling place for their souls. Because God is our 
Father, he gives us all good things and helps us to 
enter upon the greatest of all experiences—the sense 
of a soul growing into his likeness. 


IV 


Since divine fatherhood is a reality, there is one im- 
plication or consequence of that relationship from 
which we cannot escape. This is the brotherhood of all 
‘mankind. We may not like it, but feelings never alter 
facts. Many people are democratic in theory but ex- 
clusive in practice. It is easy enough to admit theo- 
retically the equality of all men before God, but some- 
thing quite different and much more difficult to accept 
the practical consequences of that doctrine. But fail- 
ure to do so is at the root of many of our troubles. 
If the employer of labor looked upon his workmen as 
his brothers, he could not but be more interested in 
their welfare. If the comfortably situated women of 
our cities, who spend so much time in what they them- 
selves know to be an unprofitable round of gayety, 
could be brought to see that the poor of the alien races 
in the less favored neighborhoods are their brothers 
and sisters who need their counsel and encouragement 
rather than their alms, their attitude toward them 
would be vastly different, for there are few people who 
will knowingly close their eyes to duty. How much 


GOD AS FATHER 105 


happier the women of “society” would be if they devoted 
a portion of their time to direct contact with their 
struggling sisters. The glory of the life of the spirit 
lies in the increment of power which comes through 
giving it away. “He who teaches learns twice over.” 
To take an interest in the problems of another extends 
the horizons of one’s own life. To listen to some one 
else telling of his struggles, hopes, and fears, deepens 
our sympathies. On the other hand, to confine our at- 
tention to those whose outlook upon life is like our 
own is to narrow our range of feeling and interest. 
This accounts for the hard and petulant look we so 
often see upon the faces of the rich who make the fatal 
mistake of trying to find happiness in sensuous pleas- 
ures. The ancient Jews observed the law of tithing, 
giving one-tenth of their income to God. It would be 
well if the modern woman of wealth and position 
could be induced to give at least a tenth of her leisure 
to the social welfare. A multitude of poor girls, who 
are now misled because nobody cares for their well- 
being, would under sympathetic direction be guided 
into proper paths. Nor would these benefits be one- 
sided. The joy of saving a life is immeasurable and 
the sense of worth which would come from having 
been of such vital service would enrich the personality 
more than a thousand social triumphs. The fatherhood 
of God involves this kind of cooperative support of his 
purpose. 

There are scarcely any limits to the range of duties 
opened up by a full and clear grasp of the idea of 
brotherhood and a willingness to follow its implications 
wherever they logically lead. It lies at the root of all 
missionary enterprise. We send men to the remote 
places of the earth to tell others of Christ and his gospel 


106 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


only when we believe that they are our brothers. It 
lies at the root of all philanthropic endeavor. Why 
should we spend our time and money in building hos- 
pitals for the broken or schools in primitive communi- 
ties, except as we recognize those to whom they minister 
as our kin? In fact, behind all cooperation, whether in 
industry, trade, politics, or the arts, there lies an in- 
stinctive recognition Of a common inheritance shared 
by all mankind. The commerce in ideas by means of 
which nations enrich their culture in science, literature, 
and speculative thought, presupposes a kinship which 
can only be explained in terms of a common origin. 
In certain moods we may disclaim any relationship to 
the yellow or black man and deny him citizenship; but 
in times of vision we recognize that he is bone of our 
bone and flesh of our flesh, for his mind works ac- 
cording to the same processes as ours, and his experi- 
ences are the same in essence as our own. Moreover, 
he has his own inevitable way of asserting his brother- 
hood. ‘The physical diseases from which he suffers 
prove his kinship for they will destroy us also unless 
we guard against them, and our only sure protection 
is to educate him and assist him in stamping them out 
at the source. 

This is equally true of spiritual distempers which 
work such grievous damage. Among these none is 
greater than war, though war is only a symptom of the 
deeper evils of provinciality, fear, suspicion, and hatred, 
which after long suppression break out so disastrously 
in armed conflict. Pacifist philosophers are wont to 
propose disarmament as a cure for war but this does 
not go to the bottom of the trouble. The mind must 
be disarmed. ‘These evil passions must be rooted out 
at the source and this can never be done until men 


GOD AS FATHER 107 


recognize that those who speak a different language, 
worship in a different form, belong to a different race, 
or are otherwise separated from them, are their blood 
relatives—no less than their fellow citizens and church- 
men. The practice of brotherhood alone will cure the 
jealousies, discords, misunderstandings, and greedy con- 
flicts of interest, which at present mar the harmony of 
mankind. 

To express belief in God as our father, while at the 
same time denying that men of different outlook and 
traditions are our brethren, is mockery. Yet we are 
making this blunder every day. The attitude of the 
church toward Russia in her long years of struggle for 
better government, however stupid and blundering her 
method, was born of failure to realize that the peasant 
of the Ukraine is as much a child of our heavenly 
Father and as dear to his heart as any one of us. If 
that child was acting stupidly, ignorantly, or in a 
wrong-headed manner, his need of our help was all the 
greater, so that our neglect of him stands to our ever- 
lasting discredit. 


V 


One other consideration is suggested by our rela- 
tions to our earthly parents. They suffer in the fail- 
ures and sufferings of their children. When their loved 
ones are overtaken by disaster, their hearts break in 
sympathy. When they choose the wrong path and 
stubbornly refuse to heed their warnings, parental 
grief is bitter. This is also true of God. His heart 
is filled with sadness because of the waywardness of 
the children of his love. When they suffer in conse- 
quence of their sins and disobedience, he suffers with 


108 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


them. He takes no pleasure in their pain, even though 
his law is its cause. Every willful denial of the good 
and true and every failure to do right cause him dis- 
tress. His heart is heavy with the sins and sorrows of 
the world, and when any of his erring children responds 
to his invitation to return to the father’s house, his 
heart rejoices in the decision and he bestows a royal 
welcome upon the prodigal. 

Conversely he also shares in the delight which flows 
from every worthy achievement. No human parent 
finds more satisfaction in the faithfulness of his son 
than God finds in the honor, integrity, courage, and ad- 
venture, of those who enter into his mind and share 
his purposes. The joy of life reaches its climax in this 
mutual appreciation and cooperation between God and 
man joined together in the commonwealth of spiritual 
progress. 


CHAPTER VIII 
GOD AS WORKER 


I 


Throughout the entire fabric of nature there is a 
premium on work. All living things depend upon toil 
for their existence and some of them are particular ex- 
amples of industry; the beaver, the bee, the ant, and 
the termite. But however indifferent or torpid any 
creature is, it must do some work to live. All have 
their responsibilities. The lion and other carnivorous 
beasts prowl through the forests in search of their 
prey; the fish strikes through the sea; the wild boar 
roots in the glade; the robin with acute ear listens for 
the earthworm who in turn bores through the soil, 
passing much of it through his digestive cavity for the 
nutrition it yields, a process that is greatly to man’s 
advantage, since it enhances the fertility of the earth. 
Even the trees that seem to be perfect examples of pas- 
Sivity, standing in the same place from birth to death, 
could not survive a week were it not for their aggres- 
sive self-assertion. They would be shouldered out of 
existence by their rivals and left to starve if they were 
not active in drinking in the energy of the sun through 
their leaves, together with carbon dioxide from the air. 
With remarkable persistence and strength, their roots 
push out through the subterranean depths in search of 
moisture and the various materials they assimilate to 


weave into the fibrous texture of the bole and branches 
109 


110 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP. 


above. So powerful in them is the will to live that we 
frequently see a large rock that a dozen men could 
scarcely pry from its place, separated from its parent 
ledge by the steady pressure of a tree that began its 
life as a tiny seedling in a slight fissure. Year by year 
as it struggled against its unpromising environment, 
its roots went farther and farther afield until, under 
the stress of its accumulating strength, the fissure 
widened and reluctantly yielded the tree room for ex- 
pansion. 

The labor of lifting the sap to the topmost branches 
of the trees after the rest of winter requires a vast 
expenditure of energy. In a passage of striking beauty, 
Thomas Hardy has described the burden which na- 
ture carries in the spring: “The vegetable world begins 
to move and swell, and the saps to rise, till in the com- 
pletest silence of lone gardens and tractless plantations, 
where everything seems helpless and still after the 
bond and slavery of frost, there are burstings, strain- 
ings, united thrusts, and pulls-altogether, in comparison 
with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in 
a noisy city are but pigmy efforts.” * 

Few scenes are more attractive to the lover of nature 
than the zeal and enthusiasm with which the birds go 
about the arduous task of nest-building. Here activity 
reaches a climax. With what joy our feathered neigh- 
bors do their work, suggesting by their spirit that it 
must be an expression of the very genius of the uni- 
verse! They set civilized man an example for they 
sing in the pure delight of being alive with a definite 
task to do. Probably the chief reason why every man 
of refined sensibilities loves the birds is the fact that 
most of them put their best effort into the making of 


1“Far from the Madding Crowd.” 


GOD AS WORKER 111 


a home for their little ones. What a world of mys- 
tery lies here, that the young oriole, who was herself a 
nestling not a year ago and who has had no tuition in 
nest-building—unless, as is most unlikely, she studied 
the domicile in which she was born—displays such 
art and skill both in planning and construction! Soon 
from a high elm branch, far out of reach from the 
ground, her young will sway in every breeze, safe in 
their hanging shelter and warm and secure when the 
north-easter drives the cold rain before it. Who 
taught her where to find the threads of which the nest 
is woven, and how to anchor it so firmly to its protecting 
branch? We call it instinct, but that is only a word 
to cloak our ignorance. Do not her zeal and faithful- 
ness relate her to ourselves—to man—for is not her 
work for the generation that is yet to come part and 
parcel with our own? And how the parent orioles toil 
for their young! It seems an endless process; all day 
long they carry insects which they have caught at the 
cost of unremitting toil, So the process goes on 
summer after summer and generation after generation. 


Thus the will to live finds expression in a multitude yw 


of activities. I leave my desk to take a five minutes’ 
walk as an interlude in my writing. Here I am remote 
from men on a quiet road in the White Mountains. By 
the roadside there is life—life too exuberant for man’s 
comfort so that he spends weary hours of toil every 
year or two in arresting its progress with ax and grub- 
hook. One need not be a botanist to appreciate its 
wild beauty, the variety of its forms, and the intensity 
of the struggles. A casual glance reveals the maple 
or the birch springing from the roots of the saplings 
that were cut down last year; an occasional pine, or 
hemlock coming up in a protected corner at the shoul- 


a 


112 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


der of a rock; numerous grasses that only the botanist 
could call by name; bracken of various species; rasp- 
berry, brambleberry, chokecherry, yarrow, black-eyed 
susans, daisies, buttercups, dandelions, docks, a seedling 
apple starting on a long and bitter struggle amidst too 
harsh competitors; fireweed, and ragweed—the enemy 
of the man with sensitive nasal membrane; groundpine, 
juniper, black alder, whose leaves are a boon to the 
black bass fisherman, for he uses them as food for his 
helgrammites—themselves another strange type of life 
with a strange history. Among these various forms 
of organic nature an unceasing struggle goes on: first, 
every one of them must work to gain a sustenance, and 
in the second place, unless greatly favored by fortune, 
it must struggle against the aggressions of its neighbor. 
The roadside—even in the north country, where nature 
is penurious in comparison with the tropics, and where 
rivalries cease for several months annually in the truce 
of winter—is a constant exhibit of work. 


II 


Nor does it matter in nature whether or not the 
previous efforts have been disappointing; after every 
~ breakdown, the labor of repair begins immediately. 
Sometimes a fierce storm sweeps over the mountain- 
side, uprooting trees in a wide swath, or snapping their 
stems as a child might break a brittle twig; sometimes 
a careless camper drops a match from whose tiny spark 
a destructive fire moves in fury over wide areas of the 
forest, destroying the patient work of a century; and 
always the woodman’s ax is busy leaving a mass of 
débris in its wake. Whatever the cause of the wound, 
nature has no time for idle repining. The process of 


GOD AS WORKER 113 


healing the scars begins at once. Slowly but inevitably 
the lifeless trunks of the burned or broken forest will 
be resolved into their constituent dust; the brushwood 
left by the exploiting lumberman with his eye only on 
the present will be restored to mother earth to nurture 
other types of flora. Meantime, before the new forest 
gets under way, a wealth of shrubs will rise to carpet 
the landscape; ferns and lichens, and a thousand other 
forms of life will vie with the young maples and birches 
starting out as gleefully as though their chance to live 
had not come through the disaster that befell their pro- 
totypes. 

But the work of nature is not confined to a struggle 
of living things. On the contrary, this represents only 
the climax of that toil. Before this was possible a 
vast preliminary labor had been done. Unceasingly 
this work has gone on through the eternities, moving 
light through space, transforming nebulz into suns, 
cooling planets, and by means of countless processes, 
fitting the earth to be the abode of life. The task is 
never completed. We can never say that it is finished. 
The universe has to be held together. Men speak of 
the “everlasting hills.” It is a misnomer. Looking 
down upon me as I write is the bold, dome-like summit 
of Chocorua.” Doubtless it has seemed much the same 
to the casual eye for centuries. But changes have been 
going on all the time and will continue to go on. Upon 
Chocorua’s flanks the brooks that leap so gleefully over 
the rocks and seem so full of fancy have for those same 
centuries been carrying down the toll collected through 
the agencies of frost and sun and rain. This is the 
sediment which goes to deepen the soil of the inter- 
vales at the base of the mountain, 


2A peak in the White Mountains. 


Ns 


Vv 


114 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


“The hills are shadows and they flow 
From form to form, and nothing stands; 
They melt like mist, the solid lands, 
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.” 


iil 


Reflecting upon these facts we are led to see that 
work is inherent in the very order of existence. Itisa 
constituent element of the universe. Without it, life 
could not be. The rhythm of the seasons, the changes 
in the cosmic weather, the continual redistribution of 
matter, the circuit of the stars,—was it not of these that 
Jesus was thinking when he said, “My Father work- 
eth hitherto, and I work’’? What, indeed, is the stu- 
pendous scene we call nature, with its ceaseless action, 
but the handiwork of God? Thus man has done him- 
self injustice when in his thought he has regarded God 
and nature as antithetical, or when he has made light 
of the truth which nature reveals. That truth is divine; 
it derives from the one ultimate source—God. When 
we look out upon the beautiful world, tense with ac- 
tivity, our eyes rest upon what God has done, and is 
doing. Doubtless the ineffable joy felt by men of fine 
sensibility in the presence of nature, and in attenuated 
degree by all, is a reflex however faint of the divine 
Craftsman’s joy in his work. The knowledge that it is 
good gives him that delight of mind and heart which he 
is glad to share with those who are capable of sharing 
it with him by their appreciation. 

Surely man is not the victim of a delusion in believ- 
ing himself to be the highest result of the divine activ- 
ity. So far at least as his experience extends, the high- 
est types of manhood are the noblest works of God. 


GOD AS WORKER | 115 


Is this not the reason the race enshrines its heroes in its 
memory and throws a heavenly radiance around their 
deeds? They tower above the common levels of 
achievement because in them the creative effort of God 
for some reason or other came nearer to perfection 
than it usually attains. 


Thus we have every reason to believe that God is ,. 


inspired with the hope of greater success in the future. 
He has, it is true, delegated a large part of the responsi- _ 
bility to man since he has made him a conscious part- 
ner in the working out of his own destiny; but just as 
no artist is satisfied with an occasional masterpiece, but 
covets the skill to do his best at all times, so it is a 
reasonable inference that God is always striving to- 
ward perfection in man—his chief handiwork. What 
he has done in the case of the outstanding examples of 
heroic achievement—Moses, Socrates, Angelo, Shake- 
speare, and Lincoln—he would do for all. This infer- 
ence is confirmed by history. Every now and then in 
every country under the sun and in every age, the flame 
of genius flashes out intensively in some artist, poet, 
thinker, statesman, or prophet. Such men are God’s 
masterpieces and set a standard for the subsequent 
efforts of their fellows. This does not mean that they 
are perfect or that God is fully satisfied with them, 
but rather that in them he has done his best under the 
conditions of the time. 

The fact that such men are so rare, and the masses of 
mankind so tardy in attaining even a modest measure 
of truth, beauty, and goodness in character, brings a 
deep note of sadness into many minds. Those who are 
conscious of the wonderful possibilities of man when 
his faculties are properly disciplined and directed have 
a tendency to become impatient and pessimistic when 


116 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


they reflect upon his actual achievements. Judged by the 
standards of God’s greatest successes, it 1s easy to see 
that the world is out of joint. Probably it is not too 
much to say that the commonplace village would be an 
Athens, if all its capacities which now lie fallow had 
been rightly directed. Yonder plowman has a noble 
mien and a keen and striking native intelligence. The 
unsophisticated countryman who planned and built this 
house in which I am spending the summer was a man 
of talent, resource, and originality. Under the inspira- 
tion of another environment and with an opportunity 
for schooling, perhaps he would have been an engineer 
of distinction. My next neighbor in the glen is a poet, 
though nothing would amuse him more than to hear 
himself so described. He does not realize the sim- 
plicity, concreteness, and inherent fervor of his speech. 
He does not know the quaint, rich flavor of many of 
his phrases thrown off with utter freedom from self- 
consciousness, displaying a surer touch in the choice of 
the most rugged and effective word than many a pro- 
fessor of philology. 

Undoubtedly man was made for greater things than 
he has yet achieved. This the prophets and reformers 
see so clearly that their hearts are filled with grief and 
they cry out poignantly for the world’s redemption. 
“How long, Lord, how long?” is the burden of their 
cry. They would develop and refine and regiment at 
once all the latent virtues of their fellows. They would 
usher in the millennium to-morrow. But the crowd 
does not hear, or hearing does not heed. Spiritual val- 
ues are at a heavy discount in the open marts of the 
world. Usually a book is widely read in inverse ratio 
to its merit. The demagogue gets the suffrage of the 
crowd against the thinker. The quack and charlatan 


GOD AS WORKER 117 


who promise so much more than they can deliver often 
far outshine the ethical craftsman in the public esteem. 
The creator of new spiritual values has to wait for pos- 
terity to give him a correct appraisal, long after his 
bones lie moldering in the grave. 

Such facts as these form the raw materials from 
which the skeptic and the cynic fabricate their conclu- 
sions. They ask superciliously, “Where is thy God?”, 
since he seems to care so little about the undeveloped 
resources of mankind, or to be so helpless in the pres- 
ence of such waste—with the multitude always looking 
for gayety and sensual pleasure, instead of emancipa- 
tion from ignorance and triviality that its energies may 
be released for high adventure. In the impatience thus 
engendered sometimes the reformer becomes embit- 
tered. He is ready to resort to duress to bring about 
the change he has in view. He would compel his neigh- 
bors to accept his plans for their regeneration. Thus 
we had the Inquisition at an earlier day, and in our 
own, a large variety of repressive legislation. 

But God is never ina hurry. With him a thousand 
years are as a day and a day as a thousand years. Nor 
is he discouraged with the work of his hands. For he 
knows the limitations under which men work; the acci- 
dents, the crushing sorrows, the refractoriness of the 
material which goes into the making of their lives. He 
knows how easily they are seduced by the world. But 
he is working not only for to-day but for the ages 
that are to be. The same patience revealed in the 
dissolution of the granite hills is revealed in the slow 
accumulation of social wisdom. Yet to recognize and 
admit these facts is not a plea for human hesitancy or 
irresolution. It is simply an attempt to gain the per- 
spective essential to that healthy view of life which we 


x 


= 


118 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


must have before we can do our best work. And who 
can be sure that any man is far from the kingdom of 
God? Scanty analysis is necessary to show that many 
of the canons by which we judge and condemn our 
neighbors are artificial and arbitrary. Doubtless in the 
world to come there will be a wider and freer spiritual 
reciprocity than we have realized here, a greater charity, 
a firmer apprehension of reality. Surely one should not 
be censured for hoping that in more spacious fields men 
shall be given an opportunity to retrieve their mis- 
takes, and to redress the wrongs they inflicted or suf- 
fered here. With God there is no boundary between 
time and eternity. It is reasonable to suppose that the 
unrealized aspirations and the broken purposes of this 
world will find consummation in the next. What we 
see in man now does not therefore justify the conclu- 
sion that God has failed; on the contrary, man in his 
present state marks an early stage in a process which 
will be completed only in eternity. Hence the fatuity 
of passing judgment upon man’s present condition and 
immaturities. Probably it would be as reasonable for 
us to condemn infants to everlasting punishment for 
their disobedience, as for God to condemn shortsighted 
men, who in wisdom are only children, to the “adaman- 
tine chains and penal fire’ in which our ancestors so 
ardently believed. 

For all that we can tell he who sits in the heavens 
laughs at the petulance and impatience of those who— 
yielding to their ferocious passions—look upon man- 
kind as, with rare exceptions, fit only for perdition. 
Such self-righteousness is itself a sure mark of inferi- 
ority. There is no more certain proof of God’s good- 
ness than the fact of a world in which self-sacrifice, 
honor, quiet heroism, the desire to do right, willingness 


GOD AS WORKER 119 


to bear a fair share of the common burden, and the 
hope of better days to come, are integral. God is not 
a blunderer as those who are so ready to censure the 
vast majority of their fellows unwittingly imply. He 
is working his purpose out, and in that purpose, all of 
his weak and sinful children have a place. 


IV 


Perhaps the most important question which every 
man is called upon to answer by his life, is the nature 
of the work that he must do to fulfill his duty toward 
himself, his fellow men, and God. Here we have in- 
herited a false tradition. Popularly work is looked 
upon as acurse. The poetry of the story of Eden was 
hardened into prose by our ancestors who did not rec- 
ognize its inadequacy as an explanation of the urgent 
problem of finding food and shelter which besets not 
only man but everything that has life. The leaders of 
the Christian church have been strangely inconsistent in 
their attitude toward the Old Testament. They have 
disregarded large areas of its ceremonial law, while 
clinging desperately to other teachings equally imma- 
ture and abrogated in the light of modern knowledge. 
Under no conditions should work be regarded as a) 
curse. As we have seen, it is inherent in the texture 
of the universe. Winds and tides, electricity and 
chemical action, cold and heat, attraction and repul- 
sion—these are evidences of its universal sway. When 
man works he is simply adjusting himself to his envi- 
ronment—the universe. He is doing more: he is enter-. 
ing into harmonious relationship with God whose pur- 
poseful activity never ceases. George Eliot was right 
in describing work as “the greatest moral tonic.” 


120 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


In certain moods, those who have been compelled by 
circumstance to carry too heavy a burden have ideal- 
ized a perpetual cessation from toil, but we can disre- 
gard such conclusions for they are not the product of 
normal or healthy minds. Work is the only means 
through which the higher faculties can find expression. 
Just as God manifests himself in his creative action, so 
man’s only abiding joy comes from the extension of his 
personality in the creation of new values. One of the 
bitterest of life’s failures is the man who does not 
work whether he is rich or poor. Money without labor 
can not buy happiness. There is no joy comparable to 
that afforded by creation. Work is therefore the great- 
est vehicle of blessedness. It concentrates the mind 
upon a worthy object so that time is forgotten. Fool- 
ish people who do not work find the hours hanging 
heavily on their hands. They speak of “killing time’; 
not so the worker; for him time is all too short. It 
is the precious medium in which his life moves and 
has its being. It is the matrix of his soul. 

Unfortunately there are apparent forms of work 
that are only grinding toil. In these the creative ele- 
ment is reduced to a minimum, In modern industry 
with its machinery and its elaborate division of labor, 
often a workman has to make the same uninteresting 
motions hour after hour. He is scarcely more than the 
slave of the machine. Such men are robbed of the joy 
of creative activity. Small wonder that they think only 
of their wages, and with minds benumbed look con- 
tinually at the clock until it registers the closing hour! 
Society is not yet just to them. Such labor must be 
performed, but where toil does not carry an inherent 
psychic reward in the joy of creation it offers, the hours 


GOD AS WORKER 121 


should be shortened, so that those engaged in it may 
have leisure to compensate them for their sacrifice. 

Nor is it an answer to this suggestion, to say that 
such men would not know how to use their leisure. 
That does not justify us in denying it to them. But 
this statement is not true, or would not long remain 
true if they were given a chance. Few indeed are the 
householders, however restricted their outlook, who 
would not appreciate the privilege of working in their 
own gardens, or at their own benches in increasing the 
comfort of their homes. 

Again, no man, however talented or powerful, is 
justified in regarding his personal welfare or happiness 
as an end in itself. Man’s blessedness consists in re- 
lating himself to God’s ultimate purpose. Thus abound- 
ing happiness can be realized only by identifying our- 
selves with some task that reaches beyond ourselves. 
Yet this fact, great though it is, must not be allowed 
to blind us to the value of the service that the man of 
humble place renders in keeping his family together, 
giving his children the best opportunities he can, and 
performing his routine duties year after year with no 
thought of merit or blame. After all, the security of 
the social order is vested in such men. Valuable and 
essential though the humanitarian, prophet, and leaders 
of every type are, their significance rests back upon the 
inarticulate multitude whose ideals they formulate and 
apart from whom their superior talents would have no 
scope for action. The framework which holds man- 
kind together in a social order is the humble toil of the 
farmer, fisherman, miner, and artisan, and the vast 
unnamed host who carry the world’s burdens on their 
shoulders and whose essential stability is the reflex of 
their work upon their character. 


122 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


If to-morrow the human race should be absolved 
from work, it is safe to prophesy that its degradation 
would immediately begin. Work is both the index and 
essence of character. It tends to draw out the best that 
is in aman. It affords him a purpose that is worth 
while. This is where it differs from mere toil. To 
carry stones back and forward without an object is dam- 
aging to the soul. True work implies a plan. This 
need not be altogether clear to the individual worker, 
yet to do his best he must be conscious of having a part 
in a larger purpose than the immediate end he has in 
view. The hod-carrier on the foundation of a cathe- 
dral is inspired by the knowledge that there is an archi- 
tect behind the enterprise whose magnitude is beyond 
his grasp. 

These considerations indicate the absolute necessity 
for faith in God before men can take their true places 
in the great scheme of things. “I must be about my 
Father’s business’ is the key to the secret of the power 
of Jesus. There can be no greater stimulus to a man 
than the conviction that there is something big to work 
for, and that he is needed to make it a success. This 
conviction rather than superior native talent explains 
the achievement of most of the world’s emancipators. 
They lost their lives in a great enterprise and losing 
them found them. Such a conviction fortifies the soul 
with ineluctable determination. It makes a small man 
invincible. 

Thus once again we are pushed back to the conclu- 
sion reached before; no matter from what direction we 
make our approach to the problem of life, we find that 
our supreme need is a firmer hold upon God. When all 
men become aware that they are God’s agents in the 
work that they do, the world will be transformed. The 


GOD AS WORKER 128 


humblest daily routine will become translucent with the 
light of eternity. None will try to escape from re- 
sponsibility because he will see that responsibility en- 
riches life. Every man will find in his task the out- 
ward medium through which he is to give imperish- 
able content to his soul. 

A by-product of work, but one of inestimable value, 
is the help it offers in overcoming temptation. This is 
what Chalmers described as “the expulsive power of a 
new affection.” When the will is fixed upon a worthy 
goal, it cannot be deflected by minor appeals. The 
passions are sublimated and their strength turned to 
the attainment of the great object. The idler or the 
man without a definite goal is always in danger. The 
artisan whose first thought is the welfare of his home, 
does not feel the pull of the public house as he returns 
from his toil. Work fortifies character at every point. 
It develops precision, patience, punctuality, and many 
other virtues. But above all, it makes a man a creator 
and unites him with his fellow-laborers, and with God, 
the supreme architect, in building the “city with foun- 
dations.” 


GEA Pike bx 
GOD AS FRIEND 


I 


A man can ask of the oracles no more important 
question than what is the attitude of God toward him. 
In fact when stripped of all accidental features, that 
was the essence of questions put in ancient days to the 
seers and soothsayers who were consulted by a host of 
agitated clients wanting to know whether their plans 
would carry or miscarry. When told that the gods 
looked with favor upon their enterprises, whether of 
peace or war, they went away happy and confident; 
but when the cryptic answer revealed divine disfavor 
their spirits sagged accordingly, and in their discomfi- 
ture they lost full control of their native vigor which if 
it had not been thus impaired would have enabled them 
to succeed, 

_- No one is prosaic enough to deny that belief in the 

friendliness of God is a tremendous asset to any man. 
This is true whether such belief is well founded or not. 
It affords a buoyancy that enables its possessor to carry 
through many a project that would be beyond his 
strength without the moral support of his belief. But, 
desirable though this conviction is, it cannot be obtained 
by mere wish-fancies. There are multitudes of sin- 
cere people who are in serious doubt as to whether God 
cares for them or not. Nor should we censure them for 


their lack of faith. It may be their misfortune but it 
124 


GOD AS FRIEND 125 


is not their fault, for belief 1s not an external thing, 
to be put on or off like a coat. As Emerson said, it is 
fatal, depending upon circumstances, experiences, and 
an inherent directivity of our powers, over which we 
exercise little or no control. Much of what passes for 
faith is counterfeit because it is not based upon a serious 
effort to understand the issues involved. 

In the light of these reflections it is important that 
if we would be helpful to those who doubt that God 
is their friend, we should give the question our undi- 
vided attention, so as to be able to furnish reasons for 
our faith as the apostle James suggested. Of course 
we have this assurance in the Bible. In story and 
in song we are told that the Lord is our shepherd, that 
he is ready to hear us when we call, to give us the 
help we need, to walk with us on the loneliest road and 
to grant us safe conduct on our most dangerous er- 
rands. ‘This assurance reaches its climax in the af- 
firmation of Jesus to his disciples, that he will no 
longer call them servants, but friends, showing a per- 
fect trust or community of interest between them and 
him. 


Ii 


Friendship was a favorite theme in ancient litera- 
ture, probably only second to courage and adventure in 
the emphasis it received. Socrates discoursed upon 
its felicities and said that “all people have their dif- 
ferent objects of ambition—horses, dogs, money, 
honor, as the case may be; but for his own part he 
would rather have a good friend than all these put 
together.” Again he pointed out that though men 
know “the number of their other possessions, although 


126 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


they might be very numerous, but of their friends 
though but few, they were not only ignorant of the num- 
ber but even when they attempted to reckon it to such 
as asked them, they set aside again some that they 
had previously counted among their friends, so little 
did they allow their friends to occupy their thoughts. 
Yet in comparison with what possession, of all others, 
would not a good friend appear far more valuable?” 

One of the most notable essays in classic or modern 
literature is that of Cicero, “On Friendship.” It was 
written during the summer of the year B.C. 44 when 
the author was passing through a period of gloom and 
disappointment because the death of Caesar had not, 
as he had hoped, restored the constittition on its old 
footing. Fearing the Czsarians, Cicero did not ven- 
ture to stay in Rome but spent the spring in one of 
his villas on the Campanian coast and tried to forget 
his sorrows in writing and philosophy. 

Most of his old friends were dead. He had lost 
his influence in the Senate. Men listened no longer 
to his eloquence as multitudes once had been accus- 
tomed to do. His old supremacy in the law courts 
was a memory. No longer was he the center of ad- 
miring crowds, and though the men of the new gener- 
ation enjoyed his brilliancy in conversation, they 
despised his statesmanship. He was alone. In these 
circumstances his mind turned naturally to the joy 
of friendship as a compensation for waning popularity 
and the other losses of old age. Yet sixteen years 
before when Cicero was at the zenith of his career, 
he had written to his friend Atticus in terms which 
show that he understood what it means to be alone 
in a crowd: ‘“‘And so after a full morning levee, as | 
go down to the forum surrounded by troops of friends, 


GOD AS FRIEND 127 


I can find no one out of all that crowd with whom to 
laugh freely, or into whose ear I can breathe a familiar 
sigh. Thérefore I want you, I long for you, I urge 
you to come. For I have many pressing cares, of 
which I think, if I had your ears to listen to me, I 
could unburden myself in the conversation of a sin- 
gle walk.” 

Cicero’s essay on friendship is thus much more than 
the fruit of peculiar circumstances in which he found 
himself at the time of its creation. It is rather the 
epitome of years of reflection upon the subject. Be- 
cause of his intellectual sensitiveness and dramatic 
power, and the vividness of his personality, he felt, 
even more acutely than most men feel, the need of 
the solace that only the friend can give. In his treat- 
ment of the theme he voices a universal need, though 
from a modern point of view his treatment is limited 
by his silence upon friendship between man and woman, 
or between women. Woman had no place in ancient 
ideas of friendship and even to-day Platonic friend- 
ships are suspected. Montaigne held that friendship 
between women is impossible. This cynical view fails 
to take account of Ruth and Naomi and other shining 
examples of a like nature, as well as the everyday ex- 
perience of a multitude of women in modern life. “En- 
treat me not to leave thee, or to return from following 
after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where 
thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, 
and thy God my God.” ? 

Cicero’s definition of friendship as “a complete ac- 
cord on all subjects, human and divine, joined with 
mutual good will and affection” scarcely reaches a 
higher level than this. It is questionable, however, 

1 Ruth 1: 16. 


128 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


whether a complete accord between two persons is pos- 
sible. Doubtless Cicero felt that this was the rela- 
tion between his friend Atticus and himself, but Cic- 
ero was the more dominant and articulate personality 
of the two, and the accord seemed to exist only be- 
cause Atticus often remained silent while his loqua- 
cious friend moved trippingly along with his original 
and striking observations on many matters of interest 
to both—and sometimes only to himself. 

Friendship involves mutuality of tastes and inter- 
ests together with a deep sympathy which unites the 
two parties in a common outlook upon life. As Epic- 
tetus put it: “Where else is friendship than where there 
is fidelity, and modesty, where there is communion of 
honest things and of nothing else.””? In this complete 
sense friendship is a rare gift, yet one that is essen- 
tial to our happiness. With true discernment Thomas 
a Kempis saw that “without a friend thou canst not live 
well” and Homer long before had sung: 


Two comrades on the road, two heads in council: 
Each thinks for each and finds the better way, 
But he whose council is his single breast 

Is scant of skill and slower to divine. 


Friendship is thus an effective and necessary means of 
drawing out our latent powers. Bacon was correct in 
his observation that when a man consults a friend, he 
“tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshaleth them 
more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are 
turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than him- 
self, and that more by an hour’s discourse than by a 
day’s meditation.” Because he shared these sentiments, 


2 Encheiridion. 


GOD AS FRIEND 129 
Emerson said, “A friend may well be reckoned the 
masterpiece of Nature.” 
Til 


Since the need of friendship is so deeply engrained 
in human life, we are faced with the question of its 


source. There is only one answer—God. The higher * 


qualities of our nature are rooted in him. So pro- 
found is our need of friendship and so lofty the heights 
to which it introduces us, that we are safe in the as- 
sumption that friendliness is a divine attribute. God 
is our friend who shares the best he has to give, or 
rather the best that we are capable of appreciating. 
Our friendships are faint reflections of his friendliness. 
The more completely a man enters into fellowship with 
his neighbor, the richer he becomes in spirit. 

Perhaps there is no greater need in a growing soul 
than the assurance that God is friendly. To be able 
to accept the words of Jesus at their face value— 
“Henceforth I call you not servants; but I have called 
you friends’—is to have an effective lever for lifting 
the heaviest burdens. Nothing is drearier and more 
depressing than the belief that the titanic forces which 
shape our lives are entirely impersonal. Such a con- 
viction crushes most of the spontaneity out of life. 
But to be assured that God recognizes our dignity and 
worth, and that he wants to enter into our plans and 
to communicate his plans to us on a basis of mutual 
good will and sympathy, transforms the slenderest 
frailty into power. It enables one to say with St. Paul, 
“T can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth 
me.”’ 

One of the most perplexing problems we face is how 


130 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


to obtain the assurance that God is a friend. For 
granting the truth of all that has been said about the 
felicities of human friendship, many people have not 
the imagination to trace them back to their source in 
God. To them the suggestion seemS so vague and re- 
mote or even chimerical as to be of no practical value. 
Thus, if it is possible, it is most desirable to set forth 
reasonable grounds for the belief that God shares the 
hopes and aspirations of men and stands in the rela- 
tion of give and take to them. 

Since, as we have seen, God is man’s creator, we are 
on safe ground when we infer that our spiritual quali- 
* ties must be related to his, owing to our derivation 
from him. Among these qualities one of the highest 
is the capacity for appreciation. Without this capacity 
friendship would be impossible. As we enter into the 
joys and sorrows of another, and he responds in kind, 
we establish friendship with him. Surely that is what 
God is doing with us continually. He enters into our 
deepest feelings and appreciates our efforts to rise 
above the native levels of conduct. In every expres- 
sion of our deeper nature in terms of loyalty to truth, 
of sacrifice for duty, of devotion to the common weal, 
and all other forms of spiritual activity, he is present 
as an inner urge and inspiration. We cannot explain 
these experiences excepting as the outcome of the im- 
pact of his spirit upon ours. 

Again our appreciation of the higher values of life, 
as we call them—of purity and nobility, of self-sacri- 
fice and sympathy—is an index of our appreciation of 
God. Only in such reciprocal intercourse is friendship 
possible, and since we have this reciprocity, it is no 
mere figure of speech to say that God is our friend 
and we are his friends when we are trying to learn 


GOD AS FRIEND 13] 


and do his will. He is goodness and we admire good- 
ness, however far we come from realizing it. God is 
truth, wisdom, beauty, and love. Deep in the heart of 
the world there is not only respect for these eternal 
values, but a sincere and ineradicable love for them. 
This appreciation indicates, if it does not prove, the 
reasonableness of the conviction that God is the 
friend of man. 

“Man must be either a god or beast to dwell alone” is 
one of the famous sayings of Aristotle. He was 
thinking of the hunger of the soul for love. This is 
what Henry Ward Beecher called “heavenly homesick- 
ness.” Itis one of our most fundamental needs. Could 
such a need have been created in us without any pro- 
vision for its satisfaction? Possibly: but that is most 
unlikely. Certainly it is more reasonable to believe 
that just as food has been provided to meet the require- 
ments of physical hunger, so there is a means by which 
the yearnings of man’s spirit may find satisfaction. — 
The friendliness of God as mediated through those of 
our fellows who understand us and sympathize with us 
supplies this need. 

Nor is friendship synonymous with love though it 
is closely akin to it. Love does not necessarily under- 
stand, as when child and parents have the different in- 
terests so that it is a glorious thing when in addition 
to their mutual love parents and children are friends. 
The basis of an enduring marriage is also friendship, 
the sharing of a mutual purpose, the bearing of a mu- 
tual responsibility, and devotion to a mutual ideal. 
The reason for what is called the divorce problem is 
that in so many marriages this necessary factor is 
lacking. The evil of divorce will never be eliminated 
from society so long as friendship is not recognized 


132 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


as essential to a lasting union, and friendship always 
involves mutual appreciation. 

Sometimes it is said that friendship can only exist 
between equals, or those who are nearly equal so that 
in choosing a friend a man should always aim to find 
one whom he can admire and to whom he can look 
up. But that would make friendship impossible; it 
is so obviously onesided. Moreover, it denies the 
friendliness of God, who is so far above us and so 
fully conscious of our immaturity, that if equality 
were a condition of friendship, he could have no 
friendly interest in us. It is true that the great man 
is often lonely but that is not due so much to his 
standing above the common level, as to the failure of 
men in general to take the trouble to understand him. 
So it is in our relations to God. We must try to un- 
derstand him, to be interested in his purposes, to keep 
our minds open to the continuous unfolding of his 
truth as it finds new expression in our time. If we 
make an honest effort to do this, there can be no doubt 
of his response in kind. The basis of true friendship 
is always unselfish—not what we can get but what we 
can give—and when this is our motive, evidence of 
God’s friendship will never be lacking. 

Friendship exerts a strengthening and enriching in- 
fluence upon the lives of those who experience it. It 
is uplifting for a man even of the highest position to 
know that his humblest retainer values him for what 
he is in himself rather than for what he has or the 
benefits he has power to confer. This is the supreme 
value of friendship. It softens the asperities of life 
and buoys up the soul when passing through the floods 
of desolation and despair. What a wonderful privilege 
it was for the disciples of Jesus to enjoy such ex- 


GOD AS FRIEND 133 


quisite companionship with the most transcendent per- 
sonality of the ages! Undiscerning critics have often 
been at a loss to understand how these humble men, 
so lacking in initial advantages, became world figures 
and have exercised so potent an influence over such 
wide areas of time and place. But the cause is not 
mysterious nor is its explanation remote. Through 
their friendship with Jesus they learned the wealth of 
their own lives and the imperishable value of spiritual 
ideals. 

What joy it must have been for these men, untu- 
tored in the schools, to hear their Master discourse 
upon life and death, God and man, duty and immor- 
tality! In this intercourse their minds were not con- 
fused by the traditions of the rabbis and their irksome 
arguments based upon precedent and authority. When 
they did not understand the sayings of their teacher 
they asked him to explain, or offered their objections 
to the startling truths he uttered. In return he treated 
them with the utmost patience in their misunderstand- 
ings and always found the clew to their comprehension 
in the simple experiences they had all shared. Moving 
out by easy stages from the known to the unknown, 
he lifted their hearts above the plane of material inter- 
ests, until it was true of them, that though they were 
living in time they were partially domiciled in eternity. 
Thus they became centers of light, and around them 
the hopes and aspirations of countless generations have 
gathered because they were the friends of Jesus. 

From such considerations it 1s evident that life of- 
fers no other experience so enlarging, illuminating, and 
enriching, as the friendship of God. Yet many people 
find it difficult to believe that this is possible. They 
think of God as too remote or too busy to be inter- 


rr 


134 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


ested in their little affairs. While admitting that St. 
Theresa and others of the great mystics seemed to en- 
joy this relationship with him, they look upon the 
saints as abnormal and as possessing a sense that is 
lacking in ordinary people. 

This view is sadly myopic. With God there is no 
near nor far, and to think of him as busy is not only 
to think of him inadequately as human, but not even as 
the highest type of human being. The saint is simply 
the man who in his spiritual life has been able to get 
a firmer hold upon reality than that of most of his 
neighbors, just as the poet is the man who can ex- 
press what the majority of people vaguely feel. We 
admire Shakespeare because he has said what we would 
say if our stammering tongues could only speak with 
ease and grace. This admiration joins us to him ina 
community of interest for he could never have built 
his “‘cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces” if there 
were none to enjoy the mighty structures of his imag- 
ination. 

So also our admiration of men of deep religious 
sense and great spiritual achievement indicates that 
we belong with them to the confraternity of the friends 
of God. That we have not more adequately entered 
into our inheritance is a fault that we can remedy if 
_we will. God is the friend of every man who is his 

friend. If our attitude toward him is friendly, we 
shall learn that none of our affairs is too small for his 
interest and that none of our troubles is beyond his 
sympathy. If this seems too good to be true, we have 
its confirmation in him who has taught us more about 
the character of God than all other teachers together. 
v “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Surely 
no one can doubt that Jesus is the friend of man. 


GOD AS FRIEND 185 


But since he is also the revealer of God, his friendship 
is an index of God’s friendship. 

Unfortunately it is true that, owing to our dullness 
of spiritual sensibility, we go through life largely un- 
conscious of the pains that God is taking to develop 
our intrinsic capacities for friendly intercourse with 
him. We are safe in assuming that nothing delights 
God more than to see his children increasing in spirit- 
ual insight and power. It is his constant aim to take 
them into a fuller measure of his confidence as they’ 
become worthy and able to understand. We have an- 
analogy which throws light upon his method in the: 
wonderful patience of the teacher of defective children.. 
As Herbert Fisher, former President of the Board of 
Education in England, has said: “To teach the blind 
to read, the mute to speak, the mentally defective to 
work with their hands, is the greatest triumph which 
the art of the educator can achieve over reluctant na- 
tireN 

In every such effort the success of the teacher de- 
pends entirely upon his friendship for the child. His 
art is the one channel of enlightenment for those who 
are so seriously handicapped, and that art is possible 
only because he has the imagination to realize the rich- 
ness of the reward that will be his, when his little 
friends understand the wonder and glory of the eman- 
cipation that they owe him. So God, with infinite pa- 
tience, is always leading his friends toward a fuller 
comprehension of the great adventure of life. There 
is no doubt of his friendliness toward us. Let there 
be no doubt of our friendliness toward him. 


3“The Common Weal,” p. 80. 


CHAPTER X 
GOD AS COMFORTER 


I 


Throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation 
there runs an undertone of sadness which grows out 
of our human frailty. Sometimes it becomes poign- 
antly articulate, as when the Psalmist confesses his 
depression and disquietude: “All thy waves and thy 
billows are gone over me... . Why hast thou for- 
gotten me? Why go I mourning because of the op- 
pression of the enemy? ... The days of our years 
are three score years and ten; and if by reason of 
strength they be four score years, yet is their strength 
labor and sorrow. . . . Thou turnest man to destruc- 
tion ... Wespend our years as a tale that is told.” 

Nor is there any denying that these amid a multitude 
of like utterances express a universal experience. No 
man in his saner moods believes that he is self-suffi- 
cient. He knows how weak and frail he is. His 
earthly life is evanescent as a dream. A few brief 
years and his very name will be forgotten in his most 
familiar haunts. But even in the meantime discour- 
agement and defeat are likely to be his portion. Death 
is never far from any one however strong. The “two- 
handed engine at the door stands ready to smite” him 
or those whom he loves. A single day often changes 
the entire landscape of life. No matter how smiling a 


front a man may present to the world, in his own 
136 


GOD AS COMFORTER 137 


heart he realizes how precarious his position is. The 
vast and irresistible sweep of floods is always carrying 
men into uncharted areas of experience and when old 
landmarks fade they are in danger of being wrecked 
upon unsuspected rocks. 

But apart from the unusual there is a steady pres- 
sure of circumstance which in the end reduces the 
strongest men to impotency. The day soon comes 
when they look forward with yearning to the peace 
and rest of the grave. Thus the cry of the child who 
has broken her doll and the acute pain she feels are an 
earnest of the later years. Life at its best is a hard 
struggle, and there are few who would ask to live it 
over again. Henley boasted of his “unconquerable 


soul,’ but his defiance was counterfeit. He knew, as 


we all know, that the forces arrayed against him were 
irresistible. 


II 


That man has not been made to be mocked in his 
hopes and aspirations is a reasonable inference. Thus 
in his infirmity amidst all the impermanences of life, 
there is a longing for permanence and a feeling which 
nothing can quench that it is real. Man has never 
been willing to take things at their face value. He 
has always tried to look not only before and after, but 
beneath the surface of himself and of the world. The 
Bible is a portion of the record of his achievement in 
seeking the unseen. Among its great affirmations there 
is none which touches the human heart with more in- 


spiration than the assurance that God is not only our . 


maker, judge, and father, but he is also our comforter. 
St. Paul called him ‘‘the God of all comfort who com- 


ee” 


138 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


forteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to 
comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort 
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” This 
is in harmony with the psalmists and prophets of the 
Old Testament whose message of power grew out of 
irrefragable conviction that God is a very present help 
in time of trouble. They believed that he watched 
over his children, restoring their shattered souls, 
strengthening their wavering purposes, creating in them 
clean hearts, guiding them with pillar of cloud by day 
and of fire by night, and banishing their fears even 
in the valley of the shadow of death. 

While there are several elements entering into the 
idea of comfort, at bottom it means to strengthen. 
God strengthens his children so that they are enabled 


“ to stand against the destructive forces that would oth- 


erwise destroy them. Though technically the New 
Testament word comforter means an advocate, it sug- 
gests the strength and consolation given to him who 
is the recipient of this ministry. Eventually the soul 
will triumph over every disaster. The kingdom of 
God will come. The new heaven and the new earth 
will arrive. The leaves upon the tree of life are for 
the healing of the nations. The supreme value of the 
Bible lies in its treatment of this definitive theme of 
assurance which is sustained amid every variation and 
occasionally reaches such a noble climax as St. Paul’s 
sublime affirmation: “I am persuaded, that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor pow- 
ers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, 
nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to 
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ 
Jesus our Lord.” 


GOD AS COMFORTER 139 


III 


This brings us to a consideration of what the divine 
purpose is in giving comfort to men. Surely none is 
so important as to make it worth while that this should 
be done merely for his satisfaction. The pagan Em- 
pedocles long ago had a saner view than that: 


We mortals are no kings 
For each of whom to sway 
A new-made world upsprings, 
Meant merely for his play: 
No, we are strangers here; the world 
is from of old.* 


God’s purpose, in giving strength and consolation to 
his children through the ages and the assurance of 
eventual victory over every enemy including death, is 
that they in turn may give the same comfort to others 
who are in any trouble. But who are those who are 
in trouble and who require the consolation of our 
strength? Their names are legion for, as we have seen, 
none is strong enough to stand in his own might alone. 
It is altogether too much of a limitation upon this idea 
to think of the troubled as those who are suffering the 
ill effects of some sorrow or disaster. 

Probably if an inventory could be taken of our 
spiritual assets it would be evident that every man is 
in need of comfort every day of his life. One reason 
for this is the elemental fact that no man lives to 
himself alone. Men are all bound together in a vast 
network of relationships so that there is no such thing 
as absolute self-determination in any life. Often we 


1 Arnold, “Empedocles on A£tna.” 


140 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


have to modify our course because of others in whom 
we have no interest. Their mishaps become ours when 
they transmit their diseases to us, or fall by the way- 
side and obtrude themselves upon our attention. An 
engineer mistakes a signal and a number of homes are 
broken in the resulting crash. Far away in other cit- 
ies women and children who never heard his name are 
compelled to readjust their entire scheme of life be- 
cause of his blunder. One of the elementary experi- 
ments in the study of physics is that in which a num- 
ber of balls are suspended from the ceiling by strings 
of equal length in a straight line, and at equal dis- 
tances apart. The ball at one end of the line is pulled 
back and then is let go. It strikes the second which 
in turn strikes the third until the impact is passed along 
the whole line, and then the process is reversed in the 
rebound. Something like this is always occurring in 
life. Men are beaten down by forces they did not set 
in motion and have no means of averting. Hence they 
are in constant need of strength that they may keep 
their feet and retain their confidence when the unex- 
pected blow falls. 

But there is a more subtle process in continual oper- 
ation by which the apparent foundations of life are 
undermined. New ideas are in conflict with the old. 
The younger generation causes pain to its parents by 
rejecting cherished beliefs. Often it is found, when 
the evidence is examined with open mind, that the 
former convictions are untenable. This experience has 
broken many a heart. It accounts for the long strug- 
gle against the higher criticism of the Bible, and the 
unceasing effort to force men to accept doctrines which 
their reason had rejected. Fear is one of the most 
cruel of the emotions. It kindled the fires of the In- 


GOD AS COMFORTER 141 


quisition and explains the bitter intolerance of those 
who in our day would belie their Protestantism by 
driving from the church men of more liberal outlook. 
Men need to be fortified against the breakdown of faith. 
They need strength against fear and the evil influences 
it sets in motion. 

Then there is the contagion of ideas. The foolish- 
ness of those who seek to control opinion by duress 
is apparent at a glance. It simply cannot be done. 
Ideas overleap all barriers. ‘Tariff walls are ineffective 
against them. One might as well legislate against the 
sun or rain. But ideas often cause pain in the doubts 
they raise and the readjustments they enforce. Those 
of the older generations particularly need comfort when 
they feel that the foundations upon which they have 
built their house of faith are slipping. There is trag- 
edy in the experience of the man who has made the 
inerrancy of the Bible a cardinal doctrine in his thought 
about God. If for any reason he is afterward led to 
doubt this dogma, the entire structure of his faith is 
liable to go down in ruin. But in some degree that is 
what is happening to us all. The truth we know is 
only provisional, and from time to time what we have 
looked upon as solid walls of fact dissolves before our 
eyes. We have then to repair the broken fabric, and 
to keep our faith we need the help which God alone 
can give. 

When men in any numbers first discovered that the 
chronology of Archbishop Usher was no longer ten- 
able, many of them were distraught. It looked as 
though the bottom had fallen out of all that made life 
worth while. They had grown up in the conviction 
that these dates were an integral part of the divine 
revelation though it was as late as 1701 that they were 


142 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


placed on the margin of the Authorized Version of the 
Bible by Bishop Lloyd. Hitherto their world was 
comparatively simple. It had been in existence about 
6,000 years, a long time it is true, but a period the 
mind can grasp. To pass from that to millions of 
years, and at the same time to extend space trillions 
of miles beyond its former accepted limits, subjected 
many to an intolerable strain. No wonder they were 
unable for the task and their faith broke under the 
pressure. They felt that they had been cruelly driven 
out of a comfortable dwelling place, unjustly dispos- 
sessed, much as Adam and Eve had been driven from 
the garden. And even when they made the necessary 
changes and readjustments in their outlook, they were 
not allowed to settle down in peace. They never are. 
No sooner has a position been established than the 
restless mind of the thinker begins to play upon it 
like fire, to search out its weakness, or changing the 
figure, to probe relentlessly every nook and cranny for 
hidden flaws. So after the astronomer had pushed 
space back into infinity and revealed the earth as a 
mere atom in the universe, causing great consterna- 
tion in the process, the geologist repeated the experi- 
ence showing that civilizations existed before the be- 
ginnings of Hebrew history. Then came the biologist 
and looking into the inner structure of man, he dis- 
covered the amazing and disconcerting fact of his blood 
relationship to the beasts of the field. This was the 
bitterest revelation of all, since man had looked upon 
himself, not only as superior to the animal creation, 
but as altogether different in origin. Thus in the 
light of experience we are pushed to the conclusion 
that the future will also bring many changes. It is a 
natural illusion to which all men are subject to be- 


GOD AS COMFORTER 143 


lieve that if we could only get our households in per- 
fect order, our work would be over. But as we have 
seen, there is no final resting place for the mind in 
any system we can build. 


Our little systems have their day, 
They have their day and cease to be: 
They are but broken lights of thee, 
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.’ 


While most of us cannot foresee the revolutions in 
thought that increases in knowledge will bring, if we 
have any imagination, we shall not deny the likelihood 
of their recurrence. Who knows the effect that Ein- 
stein with his bent rays will yet have upon man’s out- 
look, or what the final results of the exploration of the 
atom will be? The motor car has transformed our 
civilization in two decades, requiring thousands of re- 
adjustments and changing our attitude toward many 
things. Through cumulative weight alone, other inven- 
tions, discoveries, and revelations are bound to come, 
and when they arrive, they will involve many a dis- 
possession. 


IV 


Such considerations show that the need of comfort 
is universal. Ultimately God is its only source. All 
our springs are in him. And when we have received 
the strength from him which enables us to bear our 
burden of sorrow or disappointment, or to fit ourselves 
again into a place of harmony after some spiritual dis- 
turbance, our highest privilege is to convey our experi- 


2 Tennyson, “In Memoriam.” 


Le" 


144 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


ence of his consolation to others. The purpose of our 
faith in times of doubt is not to make us unique, but 
to show the way to those who are timid and vacil- 
lating. Faith begets faith, just as fear begets fear, so 
that a few strong souls who have the strength of God 
are all that is needed to keep mankind in the right 
way. This is the underlying truth in Abraham’s strong 
plea for the saving of Sodom and Gomorrah, if he 
could find a few who were righteous in the doomed cit- 
ies. Itis the ground of Isaiah’s faith in the remnant— 
the holy seed of Israel—and should be a lasting basis 
for optimism in every age no matter how distressing 
the immediate outlook. 

One of the world’s most urgent needs is an increased 
sense of responsibility in those who are endowed with 
superior strength. When large numbers of people go 
after strange gods as they are always doing, in their 
readiness to join this cult or that, or when they worship 
at the shrines of pleasure or material power, it is the 
duty of those who have experienced the comfort of 
God to arrest the drift if it lies within their ability to 
do so by earnestly showing the better way. The true 
scholar always has this aim. He seeks to impart his 
knowledge that others may share his outlook and en- 
joy his inspiration, The scientist and philosopher have 
the same motive; so also have the writer, musician, and 
painter. In fact all creative workers are dedicated to 
the holy task of enlightening and inspiring their fel- 
low men without limitation of nationality, race, or 
creed. 

The teacher has a foremost place among the com- 
forters, imparting as he does the strength of God to 
those who otherwise would be the victims of error and 
weakness. Jesus called his disciples the light of the 


GOD AS COMFORTER 145 


world and the salt of the earth, meaning that they 
stood out as conserving influences in society and as its 
protectors against its inherent tendency to disorder. 
And while it may be objected that the traditional idea 
of comfort is more restricted and sentimental, having 
to do with the wounds and acuter distempers to which 
human life is subject, this broader interpretation of 
the word is justified because it is constructive and 
remedial. Furthermore, it includes the tenderer min- 
istry of consolation, in its assurance of strength to 
bear every burden, and its promise of hope for a bet- 
ter day. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
have entered into the heart of man, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him.” “In my 
Father’s house are many mansions.” “God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no 
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall 
there be any more pain: for the former things are 
passed away.” 


V 


We have seen that it is the duty of the man who 
has received comfort to transmit it to his fellow men. 
He must become their helper, or advocate so that they 
also may grow strong. But this is not a burden im- 
posed upon him from without. It is an intrinsic ele- 
ment in his own spiritual health. To hold the strength 
which God has bestowed upon him, he must pass it on 
to others. There is no law more certain in its appli- 
cation than that to save our lives we must lose them. 
As a man gives himself in his interest and sympathy 
he increases in power. If we give away money we are 
financially poorer in the amount we bestow, but when 


146 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


we give inspiration, hope, truth, we are enlarged in the 
process. 

This explains why it is that the men who give them- 
selves grow stronger and become the outstanding fig- 
ures of history, the heroes of the race. We think of 
such a man as Albert Schweitzer as sacrificing all that 
life holds most dear in renouncing a great career to 
become a missionary among primitive people in Africa. 
Here is a genius, great as a scholar and thinker, great 
as a physician and scientist, with highly developed mu- 
sical talent, who gives up rich prizes of the world that 
are within his grasp that he may be a source of strength 
to the poor superstitious natives of the jungle. But 
his motive is clear. Having received from God the 
comfort of his great gifts of knowledge and power, he 
goes to those who are in the troubles which grow out 
of ignorance and helplessness that they may be strength- 
ened with as much of his strength as he can give them. 

This is not the one-sided bargain that it appears to 
be to those of worldly mind. Such men as Schweitzer 
have an increasing reward in the form of increments 
that do not appear in the initial call to which they re- 
spond so nobly. Through giving strength to others, 
they themselves become vehicles of strength. Their re- 
lationship to God, who is the infinite source of all com- 
fort, becomes vital and intimate so that in the strug- 
gle for light and life they move on from victory to 
victory. It is only from the immediate point of view 
which emphasizes quick returns that their lives seem 
barren. David Livingstone would doubtless have been 
a successful physician in London had he chosen that 
course, but apart from a few patients and friends, 
none would have known of his existence. The increase 
of personality, which came through giving his strength 


GOD AS COMFORTER 147 


to the poor and needy natives of Africa, has made him 
a world figure and an inspiration to multitudes. Surely 
there is none so shortsighted as to believe that he did 
not make the better choice. 

To be a comforter to the poor, the ignorant, the 
distressed, the fearful, the sinful, is the supreme goal 
of human action and one that never fails to pay high 
dividends in personal happiness, usefulness, and a 
sense of the abiding worth of life. The one essential 
condition to such achievement is that he who would 
follow this lofty path must continually draw his strength 
from God who never fails to comfort those who turn 
to him in their need. In every man, however weak, 
there is a divine potentiality which will respond to the 
nurturing touch of a sympathetic hand. But the real 
return which comes from the practice of the art of 
comfort lies in its effect upon those who engage in 
it. As Dr. Felix Adler has said: ‘Seek to elicit the 
best in others, and thereby you bring to light the best 
that is in yourself.’’ This is what it means to transmit 
the comfort of God to others, your own increase and 
theirs. 


wis, 
, sie 





SECTION III: GOD IN ATTRIBUTE 


CHAPTER AXE 
GOD AS RIGHTEOUSNESS 


I 


Every reader of the Old Testament knows the im- 
portant place that righteousness holds in its view of 
life. Around this golden theme the master artist has 
woven many a beautiful and striking variation. Amidst 
all the quiet melodies and sudden transitions the voice 
of eternal righteousness forms the ground tone giving 
character to all else, whether it be Elijah’s retreat to 
the doubtful shelter of the juniper tree, or David’s 
stricken conscience when Nathan forced him to admit 
the grievousness of his sin in the murder of Uriah. 

Behind Israel in Babylon righteousness had.also been 
a dominant idea. In fact there could not be a civiliza- 
tion without this supreme ethical quality, whatever the 
peculiarities of its form. To the Babylonians right- 
eousness meant stability and straightness, These were 
attributes common to both gods and men and were 
considered of essential importance. The kings claimed 
to possess these qualities as, even under an autocratic 
form of government, it was necessary that they should 
have a reputation for even-handed dealing with their 
subjects. 

But it would be a mistake for us to read our own 


ethical standards into this ancient idea. In Israel, as 
149 


150 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


in other nations, righteousness was construed in terms 
of social usage. The men who possessed this virtue 
were careful to observe the religious customs of their 
people, whereas the wicked were those who set these 
at naught. Righteousness was not inconsistent with 
deceit as when Abranr prompted his wife Sarai to pass 
herself off as his sister when they were driven into 
Egypt by famine; nor with fiendish cruelty, as when 
David tortured his Ammonite prisoners by forcing 
them under saws, harrows, and axes, into a brickkiln. 


II 


With the developing complexity of social life moral- 
ity also developed and with the rise of the great proph- 
ets it becomes clear that there was a widespread dis- 
satisfaction with the older interpretation of righteous- 
ness. Men could be loyal to the ancient customs and 
yet disregard the inherent rights of their fellows. 
Wealth had increased so that the poor man was pushed 
out of his ancient holdings. The merchants paid him 
too little for his produce and charged him too much 
for their goods. Against these evils there was no 
redress for the judges sold justice to the highest bid- 
der. Their right hands were full of bribes. Those 
who were responsible for these conditions were faith- 
ful in observing the law of new moons, sabbaths, sac- 
rifices, and other ceremonies, and in the belief that they 
were thus fully meeting their obligations they turned a 
deaf ear to the cries of the orphan and widow. 

Against the mockery of a situation in which religion 
had no relation to the inalienable rights of the human 
soul, the prophets raised their voices. Amos, Isaiah, 
Hosea, and Micah spoke out in unequivocal terms. 


GOD AS RIGHTEOUSNESS 151 


They denied that righteousness is achieved in the faith- 
ful observance of a body of customs, however vener- 
able; or a legal status conferred by a favorable de- 
cision in a court of law rendered by a judge who may 
have made a mistake or may even have been bribed or 
intimidated. They analyzed the standards prevalent in 
contemporary life and, with a cogency that has never 
been surpassed, called for a reinterpretation of right- 
eousness in terms of honesty in business, justice in the 
courts of law, and sympathy for the widow and or- 
phan. In a word, they placed the emphasis upon right 
conduct. Perhaps the climax of the prophetic teaching 
was reached in Micah’s famous declaration that God 
requires no burnt offerings and is not pleased with the 
sacrifice of “thousands of rams or with ten thousands 
of rivers of oil.’”’ God asks of his children only justice, 
mercy, and humility. This enriched the idea of right- 
eousness with an ethical content, as opposed to its legal 
and ceremonial aspects, and lifted it to a permanently 
higher plane. 

Of course the new ideal was not immediately assimi- 
lated by all who heard the prophetic messages. Prob- 
ably the only result was that it established a goal to- 
ward which the enlightened were ever after to strug- 
gle. Even yet the lesson has not been fully learned, 
for there are still multitudes of teachers in the Chris- 
tian church who do not recognize the elemental truth 
that the proof of true religion is to be found in char- 
acter and not in creed or ceremony. “By their fruits 
ye shall know them” rather than by their membership 
in this or that church, the manner of their baptism, or 
by their subscription to a certain body of doctrine. 

As we should naturally expect, when we reach the 
New Testament, the idea of righteousness is charged 


152 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


with a new dynamic. Its meaning is spiritualized and 
deepened. No matter how correct the outward conduct, 
it is not enough unless it is the expression of a pure 
motive and a right condition of the heart. The spirit 
is elevated to the central place. Eloquence, martyrdom, 
and generosity, valuable though these virtues are, 
amount to nothing save as they are reenforced by love. 
“Tf a man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of 
his.” The righteousness of the Christian must exceed 
the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees. 


IIt 


The only explanation for the emphasis upon right- 
eousness in both the Old and the New Testament is 
that it is derived from God who is its source and au- 
thor. Man shares this quality with him as his child 
and his chief business is to live in such a way as to 
exhibit it in all relationships of his life. God is right- 
eous. He can do no wrong because integrity is the 
essence of his being. Hence the supreme problem for 
every man is to discover how to develop the spirit of 
righteousness in his heart and give it expression in ac- 
tion. 

It does not take us far to say that righteousness is 
simply doing right, because the meaning of doing right 
is still to be determined. But the will to do so carries 
us back to God, and opens our lives to the influences 
that flow from him. His life is self-imparting, and 
when man seeks to do right the divine qualities enter 
into his being ; he experiences their transforming power, 
and his actions take on more and more the quality of 
righteousness. 

Strange though it may seem, the Christian church 


GOD AS RIGHTEOUSNESS 153 


is only beginning to emphasize the ethical content of 
the gospel. Good works have nearly always been de- 
preciated as a means of entrance to the kingdom of 
heaven. The injunction of the apostle, “Shew me thy 
faith by thy works,” has been forgotten or discounted. 
This perhaps more than any single factor accounts for 
the condition of Christendom in our time. Our fore- 
fathers elevated doctrine to the supreme place. The 
church divided and subdivided on creedal grounds. The 
controversies which have aroused bitterness and hostil- 
ity in the reaction since the Great War are all over doc- 
trines and have little or nothing to do with a fuller 
and richer life. 

The common sense of the world has passed this 
stage. Men of average enlightenment no longer can 
be prevailed upon to take seriously the difference be- 
tween the claims of the Presbyterian or Episcopal 
churches. They call the various churches ‘denomina- 
tions,” and pass readily from one church to another 
because few of the distinctions in Protestantism ap- 
peal to conviction, in our generation. Rare indeed is 
the man who has left the Methodist or Baptist min- 
istry to become a Presbyterian or Congregationalist who 
would assert that his decision was based upon the 
ground of conscience. Usually he would explain his 
change as due to temperament, circumstance, congeni- 
ality, or larger opportunity. 

This was not true two or three generations ago. 
Predestination, free will, baptism, and apostolic suc- 
cession were then vital subjects. Many an acrid debate 
took place among the clergy upon these and allied 
themes. But it never occurred to the exponents of op- 
posing doctrines to base their claims to divine favor 
upon the superiority in character of those who shared 


154 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


their views. An implicit truce was arranged around 
the text—“‘By their fruits ye shall know them.” Some- 
how or other the controversialists overlooked the sig- 
nificance of that fundamental law, and it is only now 
that the more alert leaders in the churches are becom- 
ing aware of it. The final test of Christianity before 
the court of world opinion will not be settled by ac- 
ceptance of any claims of divine preference. Unless 
it can be shown that the Christian peoples are superior 
in character to the adherents of other faiths, Chris- 
tianity will remain one among several religions. The 
one invincible argument which will eventually break 
down all opposition is a righteousness which will ex- 
ceed the righteousness of the Jew, Buddhist, and Mos- 
lem. 

It would perhaps be ironical to suggest that modesty 
is the reason why the spokesmen of opposing sects 
have been so reluctant to appeal to this principle in 
justifying their claims. The truth is that the human 
mind has always been more apt to fix upon the for- 
mal, forensic, or legal aspects of a subject than upon 
its inner reality. Thus in every age the essential char- 
acter of righteousness has been missed, and not alone 
in the times of the great prophets of Israel. At last 
it has become evident to those who understand the 
modern mind, that religion must function in morality 
or it is doomed to extinction. This explains the de- 
cline of revivalism. Too many of those who professed 
conversion gave no ethical proof of their change of 
heart. 


IV 


No sane interpreters of life will deny the value of 
creeds and other statements of doctrinal belief. hese, 


GOD AS RIGHTEOUSNESS 155 


however provisional their conclusions, represent neces- 
sary efforts of the mind to find reasons for faith. Nor 
will any wise man deny the value and necessity of 
emotion in the soul’s approach to God. But to stop 
with subscription to a creed is sterile rationalism, and 
to feel only emotion in our relations to our Heavenly 
Father, is little more than spiritual auto-intoxication. 
Both of these weaknesses which arise from a lopsided 
experience are the bane of current Christianity. There 
is nothing more grotesquely pathetic than the arrogant 
certainties of those who deny to others the right of 
Christian fellowship and the Christian name. The sub- 
stitution of revivalism for religious education has also 
been a large factor in impairing the witness of the 
churches. The only relief for the situation lies not in 
a new ethic but in a new emphasis upon the ancient 
ethic, upon righteousness in all the relationships of 
life. Only in the manifestation of a Christlike spirit 
and character can men and nations sincerely affirm their 
belief in a righteous God. 

If these considerations are valid, it is imperative that 
every man should strive to do right—a goal which he 
can never reach unless his heart is right. But since 
we learn to walk by walking and to think by thinking, 
the way to goodness is by doing good. Justification by 
faith upon which our forefathers placed such stress is 
the beginning and not the end of the process. To re- 
ceive its benefits we must give our faith expression in 
action. “Let your light so shine before men, that they 
may see your good works, and glorify your Father 
which is in heaven.” 

One of the first steps to righteous conduct is a sense » 
of responsibility. In varying degrees, according to our 
ancestry and upbringing, this is inherent in our na- 


156 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


ture. But it must be nurtured if it is to grow, and 
the only way to nurture it is to practice the art of 
thinking of our great inheritance and the obligation it 
imposes upon us to pass it on, not only unimpaired, but 
also increased through our faithful trusteeship. It is 
obvious to any one who will reflect upon the subject 
for a moment that the generations who have toiled, 
struggled, and died, for a better world had a nobler 
motive than that we who are living now should dwell 
in ease and comfort. Righteousness is never self-re- 
garding. Its springs are in the common welfare. No 
man has the slightest claim upon this title who does 
not feel that he has a definite duty to further the king- 
dom of God, as far as it lies within his power to do so. 

This recognition of social responsibility implies an 
appreciation of the rights of others and has an imme- 
diate effect upon the character of those who experi- 
ence it. It is the fulcrum for the Golden Rule. Why 
should we do to others as we would have them do to 
us, unless it 1s that personality is sacred because it is 
derived from God? No matter how firmly convinced 
we may be that our opinions are right, we are not jus- 
tified in trying to force them upon others. Righteous- 
ness implies tolerance, sympathy, charity, patience, and 
generosity. 

One of the most difficult of all spiritual exercises is 
to put one’s self in another’s place. It takes reason, 
imagination, and power of will to do so, but above all, 
it takes love. Even when the sincerest of men has 
done his best, he will fall far short of the ideal. Hence 
the necessity for constant watchfulness on our part, 
that we do not transgress the bounds of fairness in 
dealing with our fellows. Righteousness means much 
more than paying our bills and meeting our immediate 


GOD AS RIGHTEOUSNESS 157 


obligations. It means a vital interest in the kingdom 
of God, so that we may not overlook our duty toward 
the poor, the blind, and broken. In the emphasis that 
General Booth put upon “others” he was righteous, 
for he was revealing and mediating the spirit of Christ 
who is the righteousness of God. Canon Barnett in 
dedicating his life to the poor of London so unre- 
servedly that he lived among them and shared their 
sorrows and limitations was righteous. He realized 
that in the struggle of centuries they had often been 
unfairly dealt with, that they suffered through the in- 
justice and neglect of the ruling classes, and he gave 
himself to make such amends as lay within his power. 


V 


The practical question which confronts us is, How 
can we make righteousness an outstanding quality of 
our character? The answer lies in our establishing a _ 
right relationship with God. He is the source of all © 
our strength, actual or potential. The secret of true 
worth is given in the divine command—‘“Seek ye first 
the kingdom of God and his righteousness.’” Every 
life has its main direction, its master passion. If we 
make pleasure, profit, power, or any other ephemeral 
value, our first aim, we cannot be righteous. What God 
requires of us is grounded in what he is. He is love, 
and righteousness is an aspect or emanation of love. 
No man can be righteous who does not love his fel- 
lows. 

This, however, may seem to be an ideal impossible 
of attainment. How can we love those whom we have 
not seen or those who have treated us badly? How 
can we give up a considerable portion of our income 


158 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


when no one asks us to do so, because we have a con- 
viction that our profits have been larger than we can 
justify in relation to the service we have rendered? 
How can we work for reform, social, economic, or 
religious, when its coming will disturb our own com- 
fort? How can we_love truth more than our own 
Opinions, and honor more than our material interests? 

These are hard questions and they subject us to a 
severe test. Nor can we ever rise in our own strength 
to the standard of action they imply. Only when the 
spirit of God floods our hearts and carries away our 
native greed and pride can we reach those heights of 
conduct, which indicate that “righteousness and truth 
have kissed each other’ in the inmost fountains of our 
being. 

Perhaps a word of caution may not be amiss. Let 
no man be so foolish as to claim that he is righteous. 
We have divine authority for the truth that none is 
righteous except God himself. Even Jesus refused this 
sublime title. The backgrounds of life are so wide 
and deep that it is impossible to be sure that we are 
acting with thoroughgoing rectitude in any given cir- 
cumstance, however strong our desire to do so. The 
Golden Rule is easily stated, but is applied with only 
the greatest difficulty. The teaching of the parable of 
the Pharisee and the publican is a perpetual warning 
against the assumption that we are righteous. The 
moment we believe ourselves to be so, we prove to the 
discerning that we are not. For righteousness is a 
plant which smothers in an atmosphere of pride, but 
thrives in an atmosphere of humility. 

God alone is righteous. But as we strive to do his 
will, to think his thoughts after him, to work out his 


GOD AS RIGHTEOUSNESS 159 


purpose, to discover his truth, and to manifest his 
spirit by living Christlike lives, we become “partakers 
of the divine nature,’ and therefore in some degree re- 
flect his righteousness because we have made it our 
own. 


CHAPTERS TE 
GOD AS HOLINESS 


I 


The word holy has almost passed out of religious 
usage except in certain set phrases where it still sur- 
vives, as for example in holy communion, holy baptism, 
and holy Bible. Most men would be both surprised and 
embarrassed to have it applied to them as a descriptive 
epithet. Yet it is one of the master words of the Old 
Testament and frequently occurs in the New, though in 
the latter its usage is generally confined to the phrase 
“Holy Ghost.”’ Primarily it appertained only to God 
and indeed it can be said that the idea of holiness is 
essential to religion even apart from a clear notion of 
deity. 

Historically its meaning is indefinite but it contains 
at least two elements which must be taken into careful 
account. The first of these is the idea of separateness, 
and the second that of purity. God is holy because he 
stands aloof from all that is evil, and is pure in the 
essence of his being. He is remote from every tempo- 
rary interest and difficult of approach. He is to be 
feared because he is filled with a mysterious power 
which proceeds from him. If this power should enter 
into an ordinary man he would be surrounded by a 
circle of restrictions which would prevent him from 


discharging many of the duties of life. Hence men 
160 


GOD AS HOLINESS 161 


feared to come into contact with any consecrated per- 
son or thing. Probably we have a shadowy survival 
of these taboos which are so frequent in the early Old 
Testament law in the sentiment which prevents a clergy- 
man from engaging in activities that are looked upon 
as perfectly proper when performed by his people. Be- 
cause of his ordination he is restrained from doing 
things that would otherwise be legitimate. A genera- 
tion ago when a man made a profession of religion 
and united with the church, in many communities where 
the evangelical tradition was strong, he ceased immedi- 
ately, as he was expected by public opinion to do, from 
such worldly amusements as dancing and card playing. 
His neighbors who had made no profession of faith 
could engage in these pastimes without particular com- 
ment, but bitter censure awaited the apostate who in- 
terpreted his Christian vows so loosely as to continue 
in the old ways. 


II 


While holiness as we have seen was primarily asso- 
ciated with deity, it is easy to see how in the primitive 
mind it soon passed over to things and persons. What- 
ever was associated with God became sacred. Sinai 
was the holy mountain. The altars where God was 
worshiped were holy and were invested with super- 
natural qualities. Heaven as the abode of God was 
particularly sacred and was even used as a substitute 
for the divine name. When the prodigal confessed that 
he had sinned against “Heaven” as well as in his fa- 
ther’s sight we have an example of this usage. 

Holiness was also ascribed to the vessels used in 
the sanctuary, even extending to the garments of the 


162 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


priests. Survivals of this idea remain in the serious- 
ness with which the clergy of some churches still argue 
about the proper form and fitness of the vestments in 
which they minister, as though fastidiousness in dress 
were essential to the doing of God’s will. 

One of the most striking illustrations of the exten- 
sion of the idea of holiness is its application to certain 
portions of time. The various religious festivals took 
place at stated seasons which came to be regarded as 
sacred because of their associations. There were also 
the new moons and above all the Sabbath upon which 
every ordinary occupation ceased. This idea of the 
peculiar sanctity of every seventh day has been one of 
the most potent in history, and around it as the center 
has grown the church as one of the greatest of human 
institutions. The essential idea of the Sabbath among 
the Hebrews was its dedication to God. But it has 
had far more than a religious value. The physiolog- 
ical rejuvenation which it has achieved among the peo- 
ples who have observed it has given them a vigor 
lacking in those who had no such sanction to protect 
the laborer from the continuous exploitation of his em- 
ployer. The leisure for reflection which it affords has 
also been a large factor in moral and intellectual prog- 
ress. And though it is probably true that before God 
one section of time is not more sacred than another, 
the beneficial results of the Sabbath however artificially 
interpreted can scarcely be overestimated. 

Holiness was also attributed to certain persons. Be- 
cause of their nearness to God, the priests were pe- 
culiarly endowed with this quality. They were installed 
in office with elaborate rites, the purpose of which was 
to cleanse them for their sacred duties, with the excep- 
tion of the anointing with oil which was doubtless done 


GOD AS HOLINESS 163 


in order to endow them with power. This is also the 
most probable explanation of the anointing of the king. 
Certain African tribes believe to-day that if a man is 
anointed with the fat of a lion he will be inspired with 
boldness and wild beasts will flee from him. At a later 
time when the Hebrew people grew restless under the 
formalism of the priestly ceremonies and the prophet 
arose, he was called a “man of God” in the belief that 
the divine spirit rested upon him. The phrase is still 
occasionally used by old-fashioned people in speaking 
of a clergyman, but it has been emptied of its meaning. 
Few of those who use it look with particular respect 
upon the person to whom it refers. It is a formal trib- 
ute or gesture. 

This exposition of the ancient idea of holiness is 
necessary in order to show the background upon which 
the later and richer New Testament conception is built. 
From what has been said it is evident that for a long 
period it was construed in ceremonial terms. It con- 
sisted of external observances of the formal character 
rather than of matters of the spirit. For proof of this 
observation one has only to read the books of Leviticus, 
Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and other passages of 
legal and ritualistic intent. Thus it tended to become 
more and more negative in its nature, and so far re- 
moved from everyday life as to be of only academic 
value to the average man. 

Because of these observances involving their separa- 
tion from other races, Israel was a holy people. Mar- 
riages with surrounding tribesmen were prohibited. 
But their superiority did not consist in higher ability or 
character. It was due to the self-protection afforded 
by their care in guarding against the pollution to which 
their neighbors were subject. But with the growth of 


164 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


their analytical powers, stimulated by the obvious in- 
justice of the old system, the keener minds among 
them began to examine these claims of superiority 
which had hitherto been unquestioned. They saw that 
while rites and ceremonies may have their place, the 
fundamental thing is- the soul’s purity and aloofness 
from worldly interests and motives. Hence the proph- 
ets denounced in strongest terms dependence upon sac- 
rifices, sacred seasons, and outward observances in 
general. With profound conviction, clear vision, and 
in unmistakable terms, they laid the foundations for 
the formulation of the great principle—“by their fruits, 
ye shall know them,” by showing the utter incongruity 
between special claims of divine favor on the one hand, 
and unjust conduct on the other. God was weary and 
troubled by the feasts of his people and refused to 
hear their prayers until they ceased from evil. But 
notwithstanding the sound common sense of the pro- 
phetic message, it fell largely on deaf ears. Legalism 
was too deeply entrenched to yield and so the ancient 
evils persisted with little abatement until the coming 
of Christ. 


Iii 


The New Testament idea of holiness continues and 
lifts to an even more exalted plane the most spiritual 
teaching of the Old Testament prophets and psalmists. 
And while many of the older terms are still used, such 
as altars, sprinkling, sacrifice, and oblation, these are 
given a new and richer significance. The emphasis is 
changed. Holiness passes from the outward to the 
inward; from the negative to the positive, from cere- 
monial purity to purity of intention. “Wéithout holi- 


GOD AS HOLINESS 165 


ness no man shall see the Lord.” “Blessed are the pure 
in heart, for they shall see God.” 

It would be a mistake to assume that the Christian 
church, either at the beginning or in its subsequent de- 
velopment, has shaken itself free from the ancient taint 
of legalism and ceremonialism. These weaknesses are 
inherent in human nature which is always in danger of 
mistaking form for substance and appearance for real- 
ity. But there has been a steady growth toward the 
ideal, with increasing freedom from external restraints. 
More and more men of every type are realizing that 
the fountain-head of all our troubles is the heart. Only 
when that is pure will mankind be free from the rule 
of sin and death. No plan for the welfare of the world 
will ever work which ignores this fundamental law. 
“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are 
the issues of life.” 

Nor is Christian holiness a passive quality. On the 
contrary it is an energizing, self-preserving principle 
issuing from the heart of God. Purity is not enough. 
The clearest water in a pool becomes impure if it is 
stagnant. Action alone conserves health—a word which 
springs from the same root as holy. The only way to 
overcome evil is to put good in its place. The blunder 
of the Puritan lay in his negative austerities. These 
were often majestic when exhibited in men of caliber 
who offset their rigidity by beauty of conduct, but in 
lesser men they degenerated into irritating marks of 
spiritual snobbishness or pharisaism. 


IV 


To the man who has entered into the meaning of the 
Christian gospel, there is an absolute revelation of the 


166 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


“holiness of God. Nor is it to be found in any portion 
of space or time or material thing however rich in its 
associations. Personality alone is sacred. Personality 
alone makes place. ‘The Lord shall count when he 
writeth up his people that this man was born there.” 
We think of Jerusalem as the Holy City, not because 
of any inherent qualities with which it is invested, but 
because it is so intimately associated with the noble 
personalities of a far-off day, and because during his 
earthly life Jesus of Nazareth walked its streets and 
ministered to those who received his offer of a more 
abundant life here, and life eternal hereafter. 

It is even by a figure of speech that we call the Bible 
holy, for holiness is a personal quality imparted to 
man from God. Our clearest assurance of God’s holy 
character is based upon our knowledge of Christ. If 
this approach can be kept in mind most of the misun- 
derstandings which result in bitter controversies and 
unhappy divisions within the church will be banished 
forever. When men engage in disputes over such ques- 
tions as the inspiration of Scripture, the number of the 
sacraments and the right form of their celebration, and 
seek to exclude those of the opposite view from the 
church, they are making the blunder of their ancient 
forbears who helieved that holiness was achieved 
through ceremonial activities of a formal nature. The 
moral glory of God’s holiness is to be discovered only 
in Christ, first in his life of self-renouncing service 
and secondly in his sacrificial death upon the cross. 
Alike in his life and his death, Christ was separate 
from the ordinary ephemeral motives which corrupt our 
human nature when not held in the leash of a balanced 
restraint, and by his complete dedication to the Father’s 
will his absolute purity was both established and con- 


GOD AS HOLINESS 167 


served. His holiness generates and guarantees the 
holiness of his followers. “Both he that sanctifieth 
and they that are sanctified are all of one.’ He is the 
vine and they are the branches, whose chief function is 
to bear fruit in accordance with the essential nature of 
the vine. The one incontrovertible proof of their re- 
lation to him is shown in the fruit they bear. If it is 
joy, love, peace, patience, and generosity, they are truly 
his. 

This vital bond which unites Christ and his follow- 
ers is the one sure prophylactic against sin. Not only 
does it separate the soul from the world but it ensures 
a constant flow of power from God, for “Christ is the 
power of God unto salvation,’ enabling its possessor 
to retain his purity even amidst the most impure con- 
ditions. The best protection against disease is health, 
and the surest guard against temptation is a motive of 
sustained purity. Not by fleeing from the world do 
men achieve holiness but by living in and yet above 
the world. 


V 


Since holiness consists of moral likeness to God, and 
God is supremely revealed in Christ, the way to a pure 
and noble character is to be found in following Christ’s 
example. Like him we must be ready to do the will 
of God, even though it involves sacrifices that seem too 
cruel to bear. Strength is always given to the man 
who is true to the light he has and though sometimes 
obedience leads to fanaticism, on the whole such mis- 
takes are minor in character in comparison to those 
which are the outcome of indifference to or wanton 
disregard of the divine will. 


sn 


168 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


Again Christ demonstrated in his life not only the 
possibility but desirability of perfect purity. It should 
also be remembered that he gave the idea a richness of 
content which we are prone to overlook. Of course in 
his thought and conduct, purity involves abstinence 
from physical self-indulgence. But he did not em- 
phasize sins of the flesh by giving them a large place 
in his censures. He took their evil for granted, but 
he did not stop there. It is a common mistake to think 
that avoidance of the cruder immoralities is a proof of 
a worthy character. In fact it is only the beginning. 
Purity means sincerity of motive, freedom from self- 
righteousness, and an honest desire for the truth. How 
often in an argument in the clash of contending opin- 
ions, the mind is deflected from the truth by the desire 
for personal triumph! A noted lawyer has recently 
stated that in a long experience at the bar he has known 
only two men who willingly testified against their own 
interests. Even in debates over religion, where we 
should expect that men would be earnest in the desire 
to find the true way, we are forced to the reluctant 
conclusion that the deeper motive is to win votes rather 
than to persuade their erring brethren by the power and 
beauty of truth. In the teaching and example of Christ 
this taint never appears. Here we have the explanation 
of his tolerance. He never tried to force his opinions 
upon others. He never appealed to the baser instincts 
of the crowd, but always tried to lead his disciples into 
an appreciation of truth by showing its inherent rea- 
sonableness. 

One of the essential elements of Christian character 
is an honest effort to eliminate from the soul every mo- 
tive which tends to becloud its vision. Pride, jealousy, 
worldliness, avarice, partisanship, spiritual laziness, are 


GOD AS HOLINESS 169 


qualities directly opposed to and destructive of holi- 
ness. It is as necessary that they be expunged from 
the mind as cruder sins of lying or vice. Christ is 
worthy of the title “holy” because these corrupting ele- 
ments had no place in his life. But immunity from 
them can not be secured on easy terms. It takes effort 
to purify the soul. Just as sulphur and other injurious 
elements in iron can be expelled only by intense heat 
supplemented by the hard labor of the puddler as he 
is called, who works over the retort filled with the mol- 
ten metal and by his labor and skill transforms it into 
steel, so holiness can be achieved only in the fires of a 
great conviction for truth and righteousness, which 
burn the dross out of the soul, releasing its energies 
- from the slavery of the flesh and concentrating them 
upon the service of God. 

The climax of holiness is the cross of Christ. Only 
love in its purest and intensest form, coupled with com- 
plete separation from all that savors of worldliness, ” 
could have fortified him to endure this humiliation, 
pain, and apparent defeat. Only direct contact with the 
power of the ever-living God can furnish an adequate 
explanation for such love, given as it was to those 
who rejected him and put him to death. ‘Father, for- 
give them, for they know not what they do” marks the 
highest spiritual achievement of the human race and 
establishes a standard that can never be surpassed. 

But the cross of Christ is not detached from man’s 
daily experience. It is not confined to a single place 
or time. It is rather a perfect demonstration of a 
principle that is as wide as eternity itself. It is the 
supreme mark and inviolable proof of holiness and is 
as active and necessary in one age as in another. “If 
any man would serve me, let him deny himself and 


170 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


take up his cross and follow me.” Men must be par- 
takers of Christ’s sufferings if they would be partakers 
of his glory. He alone who has suffered and is ready 
to suffer to further the cause of righteousness has en- 
tered into the divine inheritance and if he has had this 
most exalted of all experiences, he is holy, because he 
is in communion with God. 


CHAPTER XIII 
GOD AS LOVE 


I 


The all important question with which every man of 
religious outlook is confronted is the character of God. « 
We may disregard the argument of those who claim 
that they disbelieve in his existence. Such men are 
few, and often those who are popularly supposed to 
take this position have been misrepresented. Most of 
us were brought up in the tradition that Voltaire was 
an infidel, a word which has happily passed out of use 
except in a few belated instances. But visitors to Fer- 
ney may still read over the door of the little parish 
church—“Deo erexit Voltaire.’”’ This dedication was 
to avoid all reference to any saint or intermediary be- 
tween man and his maker. Most of the men who have 
been accused of being atheists have only denied their 
belief in certain dogmas that were regarded as essential 
by their contemporaries. What they refused to accept 
was the prevalent conception of God, and not God him- 
self. 

But it does not carry us far enough to affirm our 
belief in God. What is his attitude toward us? Is he 
utterly impersonal in his relations to his children, who 
share his thought in at least a modest degree, having 
no more care for man than for the beasts of the field? 
If this be true, our future has little in it to engender 


hope, for unless there can be communion with him of 
171 


172 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


such a kind as to assure us of his interest in us, life 
is robbed of all real zest. 

In the Old Testament there are various references 
to the love of God, but they hold only a minor place 
in its thought. Its emphasis is upon his holiness and 


_.righteousness and even where God’s loving care be- 


comes explicit, as in Hosea’s parallel between his for- 
giveness of his erring wife and God’s compassion upon 
his sinful children, his thought is restricted to Israel. 
There is no suggestion of the extension of that love 
to the gentile world. 

In passing to the New Testament we find an alto- 
gether different outlook. While in the gospels of St. 
Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, Jesus had little to 
say directly of the love of God, that love is neverthe- 
less implicitly taught in the idea of fatherhood, which 
forms the warp of all his teaching. However, the idea 
becomes explicit in the writings of St. John where it 


‘is definitely affirmed that God is love. Here love is 


set forth as the essence of the divine character. It is 
not an attribute of God, but the central reality of his 
being in which such qualities as justice, holiness, and 
mercy, are born. If our minds could be satisfied with- 
out investigation, it would not be necessary to consider 
the subject further. But as a matter of fact, in experi- 
ence we are always looking for confirmation of the 
statements which have been received upon authority. 
Our restless minds seek to test the truth we have in- 
herited, to make sure we are not relying upon an illu- 
sion. And while there are many devout persons who 
are content to accept the Bible at its face value, there 
are multitudes who are unable to do so unless it can 
be shown that its affirmations can be confirmed by ex- 
perience. Even those who claim to believe in its abso- 


GOD AS LOVE 173 


lute inerrancy are as eager to find support of its state- 
ments in archeology, history, or science, as are their 
less dogmatic neighbors. 


II 


When we turn to nature and ask for her testimony 
as to whether God is love, we find ourselves listening to 
two voices. This would be confusing in any circum- 
stances but it is particularly so when we recall that 
nature is so much nearer to us than any book, however 
sacred or venerable. For nature is with us all the time, 
both without and within. She is our theater of action, 
our mother, our teacher, and our home, so that we 
would be blind and foolish to disregard her answer to 
any question upon which she is able to throw light. 

On our first approach she seems to hold out little 


iy 


hope of an affirmative reply, when we ask her whether ° 


God loves us. Here is a peaceful meadow with the 
bobolinks and larks singing in exuberant joy. But un- 
derneath the apparent serenity a continual warfare goes 
on. These happy birds are in constant danger and may 
become the victims of a hawk at any moment. Often 
their nests are despoiled. In walking across the flower- 
carpeted field, what tragedies we thoughtlessly cause, 
when many a quiet home is disturbed by our ruthless 
feet! Within the shadows of the grass and flower there 
is a constant drama of life and death. The spider 
pounces upon the grasshopper who falls into his net. 
The robin preys upon the worm, the swallow upon the 
fly, and so on throughout the entire gamut of life from 
its lowest to its highest forms. The confusing prob- 
lem raised by these considerations found classic expres- 
sion in Blake’s remarkable poem: 


174 


Yet this is not all of nature’s testimony. There is 
love within her heart. One of my earliest and happiest 
_ recollections is that of finding the nest of a ground 
sparrow, or nighthawk, and allowing the mother bird 
to lure me away from the sacred spot by pretending 
that her wing was broken so that she could not fly and 


THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


Tiger, tiger, burning bright 

In the forests of the night, 

What immortal hand or eye 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 


In what distant deeps or skies 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 

On what wings dare he aspire? 
What the hand dare seize the fire? 


And what shoulder and what art 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 
And, when thy heart began to beat, 
What dread hand and what dread feet ? 


What the hammer? what the chain? 
In what furnace was thy brain? 
What the anvil? what dread grasp 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 


When the stars threw down their spears, 
And watered heaven with their tears, 
Did he smile his work to see? 

Did he who made the lamb make thee? 


Tiger, tiger, burning bright 

In the forests of the night, 

What immortal hand or eye 

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ? * 


1 William Blake, “The Tiger.” 


GOD AS LOVE 175 


was just able to keep out of my reach. She always 
looked the picture of misery though she grew stronger 
the farther we got away from the nest, until, when she 
felt that all was safe she rose into the air with a defiant 
look as much as to say “I fooled you,” and returned to 
her work of ministering to her young. Whence came 
this love save from the heart of God himself? 

Flunters of big game have often told of the sacrificial _ 
impulse which prompts a buck to return to the very | 
spot where his mate fell a victim to a rifle bullet, only 
to be shot down. Love, however blind or unreasoning 
it may be, is the only explanation of such conduct. The 
same principle is exhibited in the close cooperation 
among gregarious animals as when sentries are detailed 
to watch for signs of danger. A tigress is always 
fiercest when her young are attacked. She seems to 
love her cubs with all the intensity of a human mother. 
But perhaps nature apart from man reaches her climax 
in the love of the dog for his master and his household. 
It is unnecessary to recount any of the dramatic epi- 
sodes which have proved beyond a doubt that the dog 
is capable of a sacrificial affection. Thus even in na- 
ture there is an urge which often finds expression in a 
spiritual quality obviously akin to what we call love 
in our human relations. 


Til 


When we pass upward from the animal world to 


man, we discover many of the characteristics which are & 


dominant in the lower orders of being. In primitive 
communities every stranger is looked upon as a poten- 
tial enemy. The early tribesmen spent much of their 
time in fighting their neighbors. In the backward com- 


176 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


munities of civilization there are still blood feuds in 
which murder is frequent. The late W. H. Hudson 
has described a fierce combat between two insects which 
stirred sad feelings in his mind. One fly seized another 
of an allied species in the air and when they dropped 
to the ground “plunged his rostrum like a dagger into 
the soft part of the victim’s body. Again and again 
he raised and buried his weapon in the other. ... I 
had seen just such a combat between two men, one 
fallen and the other on him, raising and striking down 
with his knife. Had I never witnessed such an inci- 
dent, the two flies struggling, one killing the other, 
would have produced no such feeling, and would not 
have been remembered.” ? 

But it is not alone on the remote Argentine pampas 
that man wars against his fellows. The lynching of 
negroes by white Americans, the slaughter of Koreans 
by the Japanese, the hysteria which throws men into 
prison because they are Communists and foreigners, 
the bitter controversies over theological questions, the 
fierce conflicts between class and class—all these sug- 
gest the prevalence of hate rather than love in human 
nature. There is much to confirm this pessimistic con- 
clusion in the place that war holds in international rela- 
tions. The morality of governments is almost entirely 
self-regarding. They think only of their own inter- 
ests. Notwithstanding the hostile criticism he evoked, 
the Earl of Birkenhead expressed a widespread belief 
when in his rectorial address at the University of Glas- 
gow, in November 1923, he said that “idealism in na- 
tional affairs is not merely impracticable, but may eas- 
ily degenerate into a deadly source of national peril.” 

These are the facts that the pacifist with his wealth 


2“Hampshire Days,’ E. P. Dutton & Co., N. Y., 1923. 


GOD AS LOVE 177 


of sentiment is prone to overlook. The forces which 
contend in nature are present in the warp and woof 
of human society. War between nations will continue 
until greed and hate are. eliminated from the hearts of 
the people who make up the life of nations, for war 
is a symptom of an underlying disease. But the fact 
that such a spirit which breaks out in murderous strife 
exists on so wide a scale is a barrier to an easy faith 
in the love of God. For surely, if God loves his chil- 
dren, it would seem reasonable that they will reflect 
his love in their attitude toward one another. 


IV 


Here again, as in the case of nature, the whole story 
has not been told. Mankind also bears a dual witness. 
While it is true that there is hatred, competition, and 
conflict, in human society, happily there are other quali- 
ties as well. Even in the midst of hostility and con- 
flict there is a great remedial principle at work striving 
with ceaseless effort to replace discord with harmony. 
This inner urge is love which is often crushed, bleed- 
ing, and broken, but never is defeated. Its primary 
theater is the home where the father, mother, and chil- 
dren are bound together in a sacrificial commonwealth. 
From the home it reaches out to the community and 
embraces with some degree of tenacity those of kin- 
dred mind and purpose. Yet it does not stop here. It 
is never satisfied with its own. Always there is an 
implicit outreaching for others. When the deeps of 
the human soul are stirred, it becomes capable of heroic 
action. How often in the Great War men willingly 
gave their lives in the attempt to rescue wounded but 
unknown comrades from ‘“‘no-man’s land.” Sometimes 


178 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


those who made the supreme sacrifice were men of un- 
certain standing who had previously displayed little 
character, or even bore the stigmata of crime. But 
at the critical moment they displayed that nobility of 
temper which atones for a multitude of sins: “Greater 
love hath no man than this.” 

Nor is it alone in times of high emotion, that love 
for others becomes the dominant passion. There is 
the long roll of missionaries who gave their lives in the 
steady endeavor to plant the refining and redeeming 
truths of the Christian gospel in the hearts of far-off 
peoples, amid untold difficulties. How can we explain 
the conduct of such a man as Dr. Shelton of Tibet, 
who a year or two ago lost his life because he was in 
the line of fire in a feud between Mongolian and Ti- 
betan tribesmen? Why should he have left his native 
country and taken his wife to such a remote place and 
to such uncouth surroundings, to minister to sick and 
lame and blind and ignorant folk who did not ask for 
his services and often would not thank him when they 
were rendered? Love is the only answer. 

It is also the explanation of the philanthropist. All 
the great reformers of history have been driven by an 
inward impulse which, however they themselves would 
account for it, is simply love seeking to find expres- 
sion. Mrs. Humphry Ward is popularly remembered 
as a writer but it is a safe prediction that when ‘“‘the 
books are opened” her literary creations will be a minor 
factor in her achievement. Her real reward in the 
esteem of posterity will be given on the basis of her 
passionate love for the poor of London, the love which 
prompted her to burn out her life in the founding of 
University Hall, the Passmore Edwards’ Settlement, 
the establishment of schools for physically defective 


GOD AS LOVE 179 


children, and of play centers to save the swarming boys 
and girls from the evil tuition of the streets. Why 
should a busy woman, with a large circle of congenial 
friends, who was doing a great work in her writing, 
spend such long fatiguing hours for the poor and the 
outcast? Love again is the answer—the great unify- 
ing principle which sends the laborer out to work for 
his wife and children, the physician to risk the con- 
tagion of disease among lepers, and the missionary to 
die at his post amid Mongolian wastes, tropic jungles, 
or Arctic snows. Love is indeed the greatest thing in 
the world, and though often it seems to speak with 
uncertain voice, and to work on too narrow a field, that 
is due to the fact that the intractable material of which 
our human nature is composed must be mellowed and 
refined by long processes of discipline to become a per- 
fect vehicle of the divine spirit which unites man to 
God and makes him one with him in heart and pur- 
pose. 


V 


It is a well established principle of literary or artistic 
criticism that a worker is entitled to be judged by his 
best rather than by his worst achievements. An artist 
who has painted a thousand pictures is justified in ask- 
ing that his claim to honor be decided upon his suc- 
cesses rather than his failures. A dozen good pictures 
from his brush outweigh a hundred of his mediocre 
productions which represent the primary steps he had 
to take before his talent found adequate expression. 
In this principle we have the key to the question, which 
in some of our moods appears to be insoluble, as to 
whether God loves us or not. Upon no other ground 
than the divine character can we explain the noble 


180 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


heights of sacrifice reached by a multitude of heroic 
souls. Their love can only be explained as a reflex 
of divine love, and it is also a prophecy of the day 
when their spirit and achievement will be universal. 

But this is not all. We have still another approach 
to the character of God. If we would learn what he 
“is we have our answer in Christ who first taught with 
clear emphasis that he is our Father, and nearly al- 
ways used this word to describe him. Hitherto, as we 
have seen, fatherhood had been conceived, though only 
on rare occasions, as one of several of the divine at- 
tributes. However, it is not the teaching of Christ that 
is of greatest importance. His uniqueness lies in the 
fact that he lived what he taught. The truth he pro- 
claimed became incandescent in his own person. Who- 
ever looked upon him looked upon the Father, because 
they are one in mind and heart. 

This remarkable claim is confirmed by the supreme 
place that love holds alike in his teaching and his life. 
He was rejected by his own people, but he did not re- 
ject them. Wherever he went he offered the gift of a 
more abundant life. He told his disciples to love their 

* enemies and to do good to them, even as he did him- 
self. His two commandments spring from the same 
root; men should love God with all their strength of 
mind and heart, and their neighbors as themselves. In 
our relations with others, we are to do to them what 
we would have them do to us, if our situations were 
reversed. No sane man can quarrel with this ideal. He 
may argue that it is impractical, though he can not deny 
that if it could be established, it would solve every 
problem. But Christ believed that it can be established, 
because he lived it himself. His life is therefore a 
_ prophecy of the ultimate realization of his ideal. 


GOD AS LOVE 181 


When we are told that God is love, we have an ab- 
straction which Christ made concrete. He is the fact 
which both explains and proves the affirmation. The 
divine character is revealed in his life dedicated to the 
service of his fellow men as he came into contact with 
them immediately, and through his prophetic vision, as 
he established the foundations of the heavenly king- 
dom and indicated the lines of its growth through fu- 
ture ages. But the climax of his love is the cross. 
His hold upon the thought and imagination of the 
world is directly traceable to the spirit of sacrifice 
which he exemplified in so unique a degree that in his 
immeasurable love we know that we have the key to 
the character of God. 

In the light of these considerations we may reason- 
ably rest in the assurance that we are the objects of 
God’s loving care, no matter what our circumstances 
are. Of course we must bear in mind in our pains, 
griefs, and disappointments, that we see only through 
a glass and darkly. We live in an ocean of mystery. 
But though a child may doubt a parent’s love when 
some object of his desire is withheld, yet will after- 
wards see that the denial was a proof of true affec- 
tion, so we should have imagination enough to go on 
in faith through every vicissitude, realizing that in the 
pain we suffer God suffers with us, and tempers us to 
rule our souls and to take our places in the eternal king- 
dom of his love. 


VI 


God loves the world that he has brought into being, 
and in its structure all things are working together to- 
ward the fulfillment of his love. Patriotism is one form 


= 


a 


182 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


that it takes. The love of the citizen for his country 
makes national life possible. Science is still another 
form of love, because while seeming detached and im- 
personal it is born only through the love of truth on 
the part of its devotees. All progress in knowledge is 


“dependent upon love. This is also the secret of the 


artist’s power. Because he loves beauty in form, color, 
or sound, he throws a heavenly radiance around the 
commonplace experiences of daily life. The ultimate 


“ground of all great achievement and adventure is love. 


This is the explanation alike of the incarnation and 
the cross. Christ 1s simply love incarnate, love for 
righteousness, justice, holiness, truth; love for a suf- 
fering, sinful, sorrowing world; love which impelled 
him to die that men should live. He calls us to join 
him in that love. The measure of our worth is the 
measure of our love, for it reveals our character by 


showing how far we have responded to the overtures 
of God. 


CHAPTER XIV 
GOD AS MERCY 


I 


That mercy is an attribute of the divine character _ 
is an almost universal element in religious belief. Here 
Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and other 
alien faiths unite with Judaism and Christianity. 
Probably this conviction reaches its highest practical 
expression among some of the peoples of India where 
it has been carried to such extremes that even noxious 
creatures may not be destroyed. Among non-Chris- 
tians, a merciful spirit toward the poor and the un- 
fortunate of mankind attains its highest development 
in the Parsis, whose wealthy members display a whole- 
hearted generosity toward the less favored members 
of their faith, Their numbers are too small, how- 
ever, to enable them to exercise a wide influence in a 
land where the caste system holds a controlling place 
in the human relationships of millions, and nullifies 
a beautiful sentiment which otherwise would have 
scope for widespread application. 

In the earlier stages of human history there was not 
much opportunity for the cultivation of mercy. Re- 
ligious pride, social or tribal prejudice, suspicion, lack 
of imagination, and other divisive factors, promoted 
the growth of hostility and dislike toward the stranger. 
Then too, in primitive religion where animal sacrifices 


were enjoined, familiarity with the taking of life tended 
183 


184 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


both to deaden sensibility and to bring out the harsher 
qualities of human nature. Since to lose a fight was 
usually tantamount to losing life, the kindlier feelings 
had little chance for growth. Such facts account for 
the bitterness and cruelty so often revealed in the ear- 
lier portions of the Old Testament, where Jehovah is 
said to have commanded the slaughter of the inno- 
cent women and children and even the animals of the 
enemy, not to mention their warriors who were ruth- 
lessly put to the sword. 


II 


In popular thought, mercy is often confused with 
love, sympathy, or pity, and though it is closely allied 
to these ideas, it contains one factor which differen- 
tiates it completely from them. This distinguishing 
‘ element is superiority. Mercy is never a relationship 
between equals, and is for that reason a quality or at- 
tribute in which God is peculiarly revealed. For this 
reason the growth of mercy has coincided with the 
growth of tolerance and liberty. Love and sympathy 
can flourish within a narrow group that is hostile to 
all others, but mercy has little or no meaning until it 
overflows every barrier of sect, clan, or race. The 
mercy of God, mediated through those who know his 
will and have entered into his spirit and purpose, recog- 
nizes no limitations upon its potential beneficiaries. A 
penitent heart is the only condition to be met before 
every man is eligible to receive this heavenly favor. 

_ Some of the outstanding marks of God’s mercy are 

a tender compassion for man, a kindly disposition 
toward him in his frailty and need, and consistency 
in treating him with loving forbearance. Many of the 


GOD AS MERCY 185 


earlier ideas of God as they are set forth in the Old 
Testament represent him as a capricious despot—“T 
will show mercy on whom IJ will show mercy.” But 
eventually a clearer idea of the divine character evolved, 
and the foundation was laid for the universal outlook 
of the New Testament. Slowly but inevitably men 
grew in mind and vision, until they understood that God 
is no respecter of persons; his mercy is bestowed with- 
out favor upon all who turn to him in their need. The 
book of Jonah, which was for so long the battle-ground 
of the literalist and skeptic that its wonderful rich- 
ness of meaning was lost, is a satire, the original pur- 
pose of which was to bring home to the bigots of 
Israel the fact of God’s mercy upon the pagan children 
of the Ninevites, and also upon their cattle. It was a 
daring truth for the prophet to enunciate, and one which 
still requires proclamation. There are few ideas more 
difficult for the unspiritualized mind to grasp than the 
fact that God looks with equal favor upon us and those 
who differ from us, in race, color, or faith. Huis merci- 
ful heart embraces the Japanese as readily and as in- 
clusively as it embraces the Anglo-Saxon; his compas- 
sion extends to the starving babies of Russia and Ger- 
many with the same yearning affection that it holds for 
those of the most favored nation. 


Ill 


From these considerations it is evident that the 
idea of mercy is of comparatively late origin. Man had 
to undergo a long discipline, and to reach a considerable 
degree of refinement and imagination, before he could 
appreciate the value of this divine quality. Its concep- 
tion marks a relatively high state of culture and was 


186 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


an essential preliminary to the idea of one God. Only 
as men began to realize the impossibility of rival deities 
ruling over separate areas of the earth were they pre- 
pared for the suggestion that their God could be inter- 
ested in those in whom they were not interested, or 
whose welfare was in conflict with theirs. 

The definite and explicit statement of this truth is 
clearly set forth in the gospels. Here all the foregleams 
which appear in the Old Testament come to a focal 
point in Christ. “Blessed are the merciful: for they 
shall obtain mercy.” “Forgive us our debts, as we for- 
give our debtors.” The parable of the prodigal son is a 
dramatic presentation of the Everlasting Mercy. With 
exquisite art the Father is described as always ready 
to receive his erring children without recrimination, 
though not without punishment, for the wanderer suf- 
fered severely when he sank to the lowly estate of a 
swineherd in a distant land. 

Forgiveness is the active presentation of mercy—the 
restoration of a broken relationship. The climax of 
mercy is therefore reached in the first words of Jesus 
from the cross—‘‘Father, forgive them; for they know 
not what they do.’ The divine attitude toward man- 
kind finds its perfect expression in this prayer. For 
Jesus was not thinking of the Roman soldiers who 
were putting him to death. He knew that they were 
only the agents of the malign forces that were bent 
upon his destruction. He understood perfectly the 
political weakness which yielded to the clamor of the 
mob and the cruel hostility of the leaders of the Jewish 
church who feared the loss of their privileges because 
they were too inflexible in disposition to adjust them- 
selves to the new standards of life implicit in his 
teachings. This clear perception of the motives of his 


GOD AS MERCY 187 


enemies enabled him to sympathize with them. Igno- 
rance was at the bottom of their malice toward him; 
most of them never had an opportunity to be other 
than they were. His mercy was grounded in his sense 
of justice and his compassion, because he knew how 
eagerly they would have received him, if they had but 
understood. 

Many a volume has been written in the effort to 
explain the rejection of Jesus; yet rarely has any his- 
toric insight been shown in dealing with the problem. 
Multitudes of devout Christians have wondered why the 
people of his day were so lacking in sensibility that they 
failed to recognize him. Floods of emotion have been 
Spent in imagining how glorious it would have been 
to have lived in Nazareth when he was working there, 
or to have been in the inner circle at Jerusalem: 


I think when I read that sweet story of old, 
When Jesus was here among men, 

How He called little children as lambs to His fold, 
I should like to have been with them then.* 


But we are safe in saying that every one who thinks in 
such terms would have been numbered with those who 
rejected Jesus. It takes prophetic insight to recognize 
a prophet and, in any age, those with this gift are almost 
as few as the prophets. Jesus must have realized the 
impossibility of receiving the appreciation of his genera- 
tion. Hence he was not disappointed; he was content 
to build his life into the fabric of the future and 
though it would have given him joy to have been as- 
sured that his fellow countrymen understood his pur- 
pose, his immediate reward was vested in his faith 


1 Mrs. Jemima Luke. 


188 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


that the kingdom of heaven would eventually be real- 
ized in sufficient degree to justify his sacrifice. He did 
not condemn his detractors and persecutors as they 
could not possibly have understood his vision. 

So it has always been. One generation stones its 
prophets, while another raises monuments to them. He 
who would be a pioneer in thought must pay the price 
by accepting without a murmur the misunderstandings 
of his contemporaries. They will brand him with ugly 
names; they will misconstrue his motives; they will 
blame him for the ills they have brought upon them- 
selves by their own stupidity and incompetence. Yet 
he must keep his spirit free from every taint of bit- 
terness. If he is unable to do this, he is unfitted for 
the role of the prophet. This is where Nietzsche failed 
and Tolstoy succeeded. The “visioner of a better day,” 
to borrow a phrase from Francis Thompson, must have 
a merciful heart. To despise the crowd because of its 
many shortcomings issuing in the failure to understand 
the prophetic message is fatal to success. Mercy is al- 
ways an element of greatness; of this Lincoln is a 
shining example. It is patient, far-sighted, and long- 
suffering. 


IV 


The man who is merciful is an agent of God for the 


“ mediation of the divine gift of forgiveness. Thus he 


tq 


who would obtain mercy must be ready to extend it 
to others. If it is to keep its vitality, mercy must be 
active ; otherwise it stagnates. No aspect of man’s co- 
partnership with God is one-sided. If any one tries 
to hold the divine gifts for himself, they lose their 
virtue in his grip. The effort to retain them is as sure 


GOD AS MERCY 189 


to end in defeat as was that of King Midas with his 
golden touch. 

This is the teaching of Jesus in the parable of the 
unmerciful servant. The master’s forgiveness was 
withdrawn because this man who had received so 
much did not transmit a small portion of his unmerited 
bounty to the man who was only slightly in his debt. 
Thus when the sinner experiences the joy of heavenly 
forgiveness, if his soul is healthy, he will find delight 
in forgiving others until the spirit of mutual forbear- 
ance is everywhere regnant. 

This must not be regarded as a plea of sentimental- 
ity. Forgiveness always takes account of the welfare of , 
the offender, rather than of the outraged feelings of him 
against whom the offense has been committed. Yet 
in the transaction the spiritual stature of the person 
extending mercy is always increased. The dear old 
bishop in “Les Miserables’ exercises a radiant influence 
upon every reader of that noble book because of his 
Christlike spirit in showing mercy to Jean Valjean in 
circumstances in which he would have been legally and 
morally justified in committing him to the relentless 
control of the law. 

One of the world’s most fundamental needs is a 
larger measure of mercy in the relations of men, For- 
giveness is a most difficult virtue to practice. The 
natural thing to do is to strike back when we are struck; 
to call the policeman, to answer every injustice in kind. 
Yet the entire weight of testimony in the Christian 
evangel stands against this course. Nothing stiffens 
opposition like opposition; nothing melts it down like 
mercy. Most of the friction due to racial, religious, and 
other antagonisms, would fade away if those in the 
superior position in the controversy would cultivate a 


190 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


merciful spirit. Deep in the heart of mankind there is 
a desire to do right and an attitude that responds to 
kindliness. And though it seems quixotic to the legalist 
to risk his interests upon so shaky a foundation, gener- 
osity of spirit succeeds more often than it fails. What 
government ever collapsed because it yielded to the de- 
mand for a larger justice on the part of any of the 
minority groups within the commonwealth? Rebellions 
and revolutions have always been the outcome of a 
rankling sense of injustice in the hearts of minorities 
that often grew into majorities. And even when a 
rigorous demand for justice untempered with mercy 
appears to be successful, it only postpones the day of 
reckoning. An unmerciful attitude has a doubly bad 
effect; it hardens the heart of those who hold it, and 
inflames the passions of those who suffer from it. 
The history of Ireland illustrates this law of life. Be- 
cause General Smuts saw this more clearly than most 
of those who took part with him in the Council of 
Versailles, he made his noble plea for a greater leni- 
ency toward the defeated nations. History has already 
vindicated him for the final record always justifies 
the principle of mercy. 

Perhaps the explanation of the stubbornness, with 
which so many Christian leaders cling to the outworn 
idea that true religion is doctrine rather than life, is 
to be found in the difficulty of living in harmony with 
the most exalted standards that they know. Most 
people find it easy to say—“T believe”; but extremely 
difficult to forgive those who have used them badly. 
Mercy is an act of faith. Not only does it run counter 
to native inclination and prejudice, but it demands high 
spiritual courage. Yet in the face of all the dangers and 
difficulties it suggests, it pays high dividends in in- 


GOD AS MERCY 191 


creased spiritual power. An outstanding example is the 
influence of Socrates. His benignity toward his ene- 
mies has inspired multitudes through nearly a thousand 
generations. But the supreme example is Jesus of Naz- 
areth whose place in the affections of the race, redemp- 
tive power, and ceaseless and increasing influence, would 
all have been impossible were it not for the Everlast- 
ing Mercy which in him became incarnate. Christ on 
the one side—Mohammed or Napoleon on the other— 
the instincts of the human heart never hesitate when 
this choice is put before them. Mercy carries an inner 
witness which in the long run dissolves all opposition 
toward those who grant it. 

Once when the army of Napoleon was crossing the 
Alps, a bugler, who was a mere boy, slipped from the 
road to a ledge far below the line of travel. He blew 
a call of distress on his bugle and an officer halted the 
march to try to effect a rescue. Napoleon, happening to 
come along, impatiently asked the reason for the delay. 
On being told, he ordered the army to proceed. He 
could not allow the life of a common soldier to retard 
his purpose for a moment, and so the poor boy was left 
to blow his own requiem as the army passed on. 

No contrast could be sharper than that between the 
character revealed in the heartless impatience of this 
act and the character of Jesus. To him the humblest 
life was worthy of all possible aid, because every man 
is a child of God. Thus he was merciful toward the 
woman who was a sinner, though her life was forfeit 
according to the law. His forgiveness took full account 
of the evil influences beyond her control that had tended 
to make her what she was, and also of her future good. 
This is the attitude of God toward man, and it is the 
responsibility of those who have experienced the divine 


192 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


mercy to extend this gift to all mankind. The funda- 
mental motive of the missionary is not response to an 
external command, but mercy reaching out across the 
sea to the benighted, the superstitious, the cruel, the 
poor, and unknown, in their hunger of soul. The day 
will arrive when, as the Psalmist foresaw, “mercy 
shall be built up forever” in the commonwealth of lov- 
ing forbearance, where none will deal harshly with his 
neighbor. The spirit of Napoleon must give place to 
the spirit of Christ. 


CHAPTER XV 
GOD AS GRACE 


I 


Every one is familiar with changes of fashion in 
dress. Apparently without reason, and without inti- 
mation from any quarter, new modes appear and before 
we realize it we are striving to adjust ourselves to the 
new conditions which like the wind come from we know 
not where. This is also true of the language in which 
we clothe our thought. It is in constant process of 
change. If we were unfamiliar with the King James 
version of the Bible and should hear it read for the 
first time, its noblest passages would sound quaint and 
remote from both the speech and experience of daily 
life. This explains our need of new translations of 
the Bible from time to time. As certain forms of ex- 
pression pass out of use, it is necessary to find their 
equivalents in the language of the day. ' 

A striking illustration of this decay of words is 
found in the phrase, “the grace of God,’ which was 
much in vogue in the language of our forbears and until 
a generation or so ago. Probably it was used so fre- 
quently that it lost its flavor. Perhaps it was worn 
threadbare by unctuous usage so that men of sensitive 
temper refrained from using it out of reverence for 
its great truth. However that may be, it is scarcely 


heard any longer excepting in formal benediction. But 
193 


194 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


whatever the reason, we can ill afford to give it up, be- 
cause of its rich associations and more particularly be- 
cause it covers in a simple and definite way the greatest 
truth of religion. A recognition of this prompted the 
late Dr. P. T. Forsyth to declare some years before 
his death, that we need to restore the word “grace” to 
modern preaching, but it is obvious that more than 
the restoration of a word is needed. What we require 
is a fresh and vital experience of the reality for which 
the word stands, which, as we shall see, is God’s infinite 
‘ mercy and loving-kindness going out actively toward 
every one of his children entirely apart from any merit 
or demerit of theirs, 

Grace is preéminently a Biblical word and though its 
fullest meaning is reached only in the New Testament, 
there is a definite overture to it in the Old, where the 
idea is covered by two words, one of which means the 
favor, and the other, the loving-kindness of God. Reli- 
gion in the true sense would be impossible apart from 
this belief in God’s merciful protection and interest. 
All the great doctrines of the Christian gospel are 
found in one form or another in the religion of the 
Jews, but with this profound difference that the prom- 
ised blessings of the latter are confined to the children of 
Israel, whereas in the New Testament they are made 
universal. Thus the New Testament idea of grace is 
both mellower and richer than that of the Old. It 
carries the idea of unconditioned beneficence. Nothing 
that the recipient has done or can do is essential to 
its manifestation. No matter how unworthy a man is, 
he is still an object of the divine grace which is love in 
its free, self-imparted, and unpurchased aspect. 


GOD AS GRACE 195 


II 


Baron von Hugel has used the word “givenness’’ to _ 
express the essential quality of grace. God reaches out 
for man and dowers him with his gifts and draws him 
toward himself. His greatest delight is found in man’s 
appreciation of the opportunities he has bestowed upon 
him. A little reflection will show how narrow is the 
range of our own unaided achievement, if indeed it 
exists at all, We had no choice of our birth either in 
its place or time. For aught that we did or could do, 
we might as well have been born Hottentots or Mo- 
hammedans. Our parents were given to us and also 
the talents which we inherited through them. Over 
these talents they had no control. The line of life was 
carried through them. That was all. Whether the 
child is musical or mathematical, a dullard or a genius, 
depends upon a shaping force beyond human power to 
determine or control. 

The same is true of the environment in which the in- 
fant’s palpitating body is placed for its development. 
The earth is its home, or rather the universe, but the 
vainest of men would make no claim to having a part 
in the creation. That also is given. Fields and moun- 
tains, clouds and oceans, sun and stars, and also his 
spiritual inheritance, in the shape of manners, cus- 
toms, and culture, all await the opening mind of the 
child. Their light falls upon him. Their mystic sug- 
gestions enter into his soul and draw out its latent ca- 
pacities. His education is the process of learning to 
interpret the meaning of the world which was ready for 
him when first he opened his eyes in wonder. 

But the objection may be raised that, when the child 
becomes a man, he has the power to decide his own 


196 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


destiny. By exercise of his will he can break down 
the barriers in his path and rise above his natural level. 
Through rigorous application, he can overcome the 
handicaps of birth and leave many of his fellows far be- 
hind who perhaps started with advantages much su- 
perior to his. But, here again, the fact of givenness 
appears and warns us against self-esteem. Whence 
comes this ambition, this intrinsic strength, which en- 
ables its possessor to climb the heights? It is also 
the gift of God, for man can neither create it in him- 
self nor can he cut the channels in his personality 
through which it flows to turn the wheels of achieve- 
ment. 

Thus it is largely beside the mark to suggest to a 
poor youth that he can follow in the footsteps of Lin- 
coln as the rhetorician so often advises. One might as 
well hold out the hope that every budding poet can be- 
come a Shakespeare; or every callow thinker, a Socrates. 
The power of persistence in the face of handicap is no 
less a part of what God has given to a man than the 
color of his eyes. And though there must be a region 
of non-interference, in which we work out our own 
destiny, it is much more restricted than we realize. The 
margins of human choice are narrow. Under other 
circumstances or with a different initial equipment, the 
good man would be a scoundrel or vice versa. 


Iil 


_ It is a commonplace of religious faith to affirm that 

the culmination of God’s beneficence is Jesus Christ, 
who is “full of grace and truth.” Multitudinous though 
God’s gifts to us, the gift of gifts is Christ. Nor is 
the reason remote nor abstract. There is no occasion 


GOD AS GRACE 197 


whatever for argument as to the way in which this 
supreme manifestation of the grace of God operates. 
The best explanations can only be provisional. No 
graver blunder can be made than to rest in the convic- 
tion that we have found a final explanation of the per- 
son or work of Christ. The difficulty lies in the many 
unseen factors which we can never discover. Hence 
it is futile to argue that this or that theory of the 
atonement is essential to true faith. It is not neces- 
sary to understand the principles of physiology in order 
to have a good digestion: a man may experience the 
grace of God without having an explanation to offer 
as to the way it operates. 

However, this does not indicate that we are in the 
dark as to the meaning of the gift of Christ. He 
stands before the world as its supreme exemplar. He 
shows the way to salvation to all who follow him. For 
in every man there are wonderful potencies which only 
await the right stimulus to draw them out and give 
them expression in action. Here they take on a req- 
uisite wholeness of good character. In a word, this 
is the meaning of salvation which we are told is 
brought by “the grace of God.” Both in his life and 
in his death, and in his present power, Christ is God’s 
free offering to mankind, sharing their human nature 
that men may take on the virtues of heart and mind 
which are manifested in him. While we cannot reach 
the heights attained by Christ, our lives can move in 
the same direction and be animated by his spirit. That 
is salvation, emancipation from the control of the per- 
ishable elements in our nature, bringing it under the 
direction of those elements which are imperishable. 
“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” 
“The mortal must therefore put on immortality.” Such 


198 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


is the purpose of life which is a constant struggle be- 
tween the physical and the spiritual, and only by the 

grace of God can the spiritual become victorious. Mod- 
ern biology confirms this conclusion. Whatever the 
mistakes and exaggerations of Calvinism, it was right 
in its recognition that.the men who achieve moral dis- 
tinction do so because of their belief in their divine 
election or assurance of the love of God freely given 
without merit on their part. 


IV 


One remarkable result of the experience of the grace 
of God is a sense of power. The strength of St. Paul 
is due in no small measure to his assurance that he was 
a recipient of the divine favor. He went up and down 
the world of his day overcoming insuperable obstacles, 
beating down the bitter opposition of those who should 
have been his friends, and risking death in a hundred 
ways, in order to share with others his experience of 
salvation. This was the theme of all his preaching. 
“By the grace of God, I am what I am.” He pro- 
claimed his message with passion and power because 
of his conviction that God had freely bestowed upon 
him the gift of eternal life as it had been manifested 
in Christ. 

Centuries after Martin Luther fired the world with 
a simple story born of his own experience. His proc- 
lamation was the truth that God freely forgives the 
penitent soul. His words swept like a prairie fire over 
Europe because they came from the intense convic- 
tion that his sins had been forgiven. Only the grace 
* of God can blot out man’s transgressions when the soul 
has been marred by the degrading application of its 


GOD AS GRACE 199 


powers to selfish or base purposes. What a miracle it is 
that it can be restored! The grace of God alone can 
bring it back again to its original beauty and strength. 
That miraculous drama is being constantly reénacted. 
“He restoreth my soul.’ Just as nature begins im- 
mediately to heal the wounds of the body, so the Holy 
Spirit works upon the heart of the penitent sinner and + 
his virtues, long suppressed by selfish impulses, are re- 
created by the grace of God. 

What Luther achieved in his day was repeated by 
John Wesley two centuries later in England. He 
preached with irresistible power the gospel of free 
salvation and thousands, as they listened, believed and 
were lifted out of their degradation, gaining a sense of 
worth they had never felt before, and rising from the 
squalor of misery and vice to virtuous self-respect. 
Wesley’s success can not be explained except as we re- 
call his gift of making his hearers see that they could 
be saved by grace. Many of them had believed them- 
selves to be beyond hope. They understood the vicious- 
ness of their lives, but they saw no door of escape 
‘ until Wesley’s ringing voice proclaimed that salvation 
can not be earned by merit; whether a man is of high 
or low degree, his emancipation from sin is dependent 
upon the gift of God. 


Vv 


Here we need to guard against the blunder that has 
often been made by those who have been most sensi- 
tive of the divine favor. This is a high opinion of 
our own importance. Christianity has been criticized 
adversely because of the restriction of its interest to the 
welfare of the individual believer, tending to give him 


200 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP. 


an exaggerated sense of his worth. Dr. Felix Adler, in 
his Hibbert lectures, in contrasting the Christian ideal 
with that of Judaism says: “The individual was to 
work out his spiritual destiny no longer as included 
in an ideally just community, but standing on his own 
feet, remitted to his own resources,—just a man, loose 
from the national connections, no longer leaning on 
public law, but dependent on his own effort, or, if that 
should fail him, as soon became apparent, on the per- 
sonal assistance of a superhuman divine individual.” * 

We must admit that this criticism is just so far as 
organized Christianity is concerned. In most of our 
older hymns there was no recognition of social duty, 
no conception of any obligations toward mankind in 
general, This is also true of most of the revival 
hymns of to-day, the theology of which is a survival 
from that of a century ago. But when we go back to 
the gospels, we soon discover that Jesus gives no war- 
rant for an excessive individualism. He recognizes the 
common welfare clearly and indisputably and the in- 
terlocking of all human relationships. The kingdom of 
heaven lies at the heart of his teaching. Strangely 
enough the theologians missed this salient fact for cen- 
turies. The Westminster Confession of Faith and the 
Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church are silent 
about it, and only within a generation has the church 
discovered that a social gospel is explicitly taught in the 
New Testament. Probably the reason for this failure 
is to be found in the former belief in total depravity. 
Only the chosen few came within the reach of the divine 
love. All others were beyond redemption. Thus there 
was no place in the thought of the church for such a 
wide outlook as that involved in the idea of the kingdom. 


1 Adler, “The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal,” p. 4o. 


GOD AS GRACE 201 


Men were content in the assurance of their own salva- 
tion and that of those of kindred mind. They saw no 
hope for any one beyond their sectarian boundaries. 

But the day has arrived when such bigotry is no 
longer tenable by any one who has caught the spirit 
of the age. Men have grown more hospitable toward 
the ideas of their neighbors because they have learned 
how these ideas have come into being. Our forbears 
could believe that they were particularly chosen of God 
to be the recipients of his favor, but the idea of the 
divine purpose has broadened and we know that we 
cannot base any claim of virtue upon the fact that we 
were born in one church or faith as over against an- 
other. We have learned enough psychology to under- 
stand that if we were in the other man’s place, we should 
probably think and act as he does. Thus we dare not 
condemn him for being what he is, lest we condemn 
ourselves in uttering judgment against him. 

Moreover, we have come to realize that our wel- 
fare depends upon the welfare of those who are round 
about us. The fact that we are the beneficiaries of 
the divine favor does not warrant the assumption that 
we have no obligations toward our less fortunate neigh- 
bors. On the contrary, the grace of God requires that 
we act as channels through which it may be conveyed 
to others. That is the way we ourselves received it. 
As we have seen, our birth, our intellectual and spiritual 
inheritance, and our civilization, have all come from 
those whom God used to transmit his gifts to us. Few 
people are vain enough to think that they have created 
their own ideas or outlook upon the world. 

The grace that we enjoy is no proof that God has 
singled us out for particular honor. It is our mark of 
responsibility, our call to service. Grace is as free as 


= 


202 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


the sunlight, but to realize its essential value those who 


“receive it must transmit it to others, To try to hold it 


L 
for oneself is to attempt the impossible, for spiritual 


gifts degenerate and become sterile except as they are 
kept in circulation. When this is done there is no 
danger of an inflated sense of our own importance, 
since on the one side we recognize our responsibilities, 
and on the other, the equal standing of our neighbors 
as recipients of the divine favor. 


VI 


There is another practical consideration to be kept 
in mind in connection with this aspect of God’s rela- 
tion to his children. When grace enters the soul, it 
sets up a new standard of conduct—a new goal to be 
striven for. It teaches us that “denying ungodliness 
and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, 
and godly, in this present world.” Instead of taking 
the burden of endeavor from us, it faces us squarely 
with the responsibility of working out our own salva- 
tion. Nor are sobriety, righteousness, and godliness, 
mere abstractions. They have each a pointed meaning. 
The Christian above all others should show the gospel 
he professes in his life. A balanced view of things, not 
given to excess in any direction, a passion for what is 
just, finding expression in a life which obviously draws 
its strength from God—these are the qualities which 
grace implants in the sensitive soul, so that they become 
constituent elements of regenerated human nature. In 


per.” If any man would learn the meaning of grace 


GOD AS GRACE 203 


in its fullness and power, he has an infallible source 
of information and inspiration in the sympathy, good- 
ness, tolerance, purity, patience, generosity, and sacri- 
fice, manifested by Jesus of Nazareth, who was “full 
of grace and truth.” 


CHAPTER XVI 
GOD AS PEACE 


I 


Peace is one of the regal words of the Bible, and 
the idea of which it is the symbol holds a large place 
in both the Old Testament and the New, though it has 
a narrower and deeper meaning in the latter than in the 
former. In the Old Testament the fundamental sense 
in which the word is used is well-being, including both 
outward and inward good. But so frequently was 
Israel ravaged by war that eventually the incidental 
meaning displaced the original, so that we have inherited 
the idea of tranquillity which obviously covers only a 
part of well-being. In our modern security against 
hostile aggression, it is difficult to imagine the appre- 
hension which all aliens arouse in such a primitive and 
warlike society as that which the older narratives of 
the Bible reveal. When strangers appeared they were 
exposed to suspicion and mistrust and only when they 
were able to give the assurance that their intentions 
were peaceful were they treated as friends. 

From this practical meaning, the idea of peace passed 
by natural transition to express the most desirable rela- 
tionship between God and his children. When men felt 
that they had displeased him by their sins, they were 
greatly relieved by the assurance that his attitude toward 
them was kindly. Thus greatly alarmed by an angelic 


visitation Gideon cried out: “Alas! O Lord God, be- 
204 


GOD AS PEACE 205 


cause I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face;” 
but the answer came back: “Peace be unto thee, fear 
not; thou shalt not die.’ Hence, whether in the rela- 
tions between man and his neighbor or between him and 
God, in the Old Testament peace carries the idea of 
prosperity and freedom from disturbance. 

Perhaps the most characteristic quality of Christian- 
ity is its inwardness in contrast with Judaism which 
lays stress upon outward values. Thus the essential 
meaning of peace in New Testament usage is the 
serenity of soul which is effected through the sinner’s ¥ 
reconciliation with God. When Jesus gave his legacy 
to his disciples in the words, “My peace I leave with 
you,’ he meant that they were to enjoy the same con- 
fidence, poise, and calm, which marked his own life. 
He can not have meant that his followers were to have 
a perpetual guarantee against persecution, oppression, 
turmoil, and the aggressive hostility, of those who be- 
lieved neither in him nor his gospel. Imprisonments 
and martyrdoms soon became common in the early 
church. ‘Think ye not that I am come to send peace 
on earth? I tell you nay, but rather division. I am 
not come to send peace, but a sword.” He knew that 
the pure and holy life to which he called his disciples 
would excite jealous hostility in the hearts of those who 
rejected the same call. There is nothing the carnal mind 
hates more than the unconscious judgment utteréd 
against 1t by the pure in heart. In the bitterness of 
disposition aroused by this condemnation, it is easily 
stirred to a blind fury against the good. This accounts 
for at least a part of the vindictiveness and cruelty that 
the world has so often visited upon the prophet and re- 
former. Jesus understood perfectly that his followers 
would suffer, so that we are safe in the conclusion that 


206 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


in promising them peace he was not thinking of deliver- 
ance from outward troubles. 

What then was the meaning of the word as he used 
it? We have only to read his message and catch his 
spirit to understand that he was thinking of that in- 
ward harmony which ensures freedom from distraction 
and gives tranquil dignity to the soul. In all of his 
epistles St. Paul prays that those to whom he is writing 
may have “peace from God the Father and our Lord 
Jesus Christ.” He must have regarded it as an indis- 
pensable gift, a quality the Christian must possess, or 
he would not have recurred to it so often. And he 
was right. The peace which Christ gives is independ- 
ent of circumstance however troublous. It is the calm 
which indicates that the channels between the subcon- 
scious mind and God are open and that in the inter- 
course thus established the assurance of divine support 
becomes the priceless possession of the human soul. 


II 


This condition of inward wholeness includes a va- 
riety of elements. One of the most obvious of these is 
freedom from fear and anxiety about the future. The 
conviction that all things work together for good to 
them who love God is one of the first proofs that the 
soul has found the peace which comes from union with 
God, and the assurance of final good which that union 
always gives. Man lives in a chaotic and distempered 
world until he reaches the conviction that he is the child 
of a God who cares for him and watches over him. 
Then order appears in the most unpromising circum- 
stances. His heart is filled with steadiness and calm 


GOD AS PEACE 207 


and he goes forward undisturbed by any dreads or fore- 
bodings of what the future may bring. 

Peace, however, is more than freedom from physical 
anxiety. To every man with any degree of mentality, 
life presents many a perplexing problem. It is charged 
with mystery. We cannot think of an end to space, 
but it is equally baffling to think of space extending on 
and on indefinitely. Where did it come from? What 
lies beyond the beyond? Why is it that evil so often 
triumphs over good? Why does God allow so much 
suffering and injustice, and how is it that goodness and 
merit are so often pushed into a secondary place by ag- 
gressive mediocrity? If the traditional belief in a spe- 
cial creation of man is wrong, has he any solid ground 
upon which to base his hope of immortality? Is Chris- 
tian faith a reality or a shadow? ‘These are but a few 
of the questions which disturb the intellectual repose 
of all who try to think their way through the mystery 
of our being. Suppose the universe had never existed ! 
Yet we cannot grasp in thought the nothingness that 
would then have been. 

Left to ourselves for the answer to these questions 
our minds would circle in an idle round, arriving no- 
where, like a squirrel in a cage, and would grow 
weary and baffled in the process. But when we enter 
into partnership with “the God of all peace,” a new light 
breaks over the enigmas of life and they take on fresh 
meaning. We take courage when we see that we see 
so little, and that beyond our seeing the purpose of God 
is being worked out in perfect accordance with his 
timeless plan. Belief in God enables men to see that 
the triumphs of evil are only temporary, that time is 
on the side of truth which will eventually prevail, and 


208 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


this assurance gives them strength and calm—‘the 
peace of God which passeth all understanding.” 

The Stoics believed in and taught a negative tran- 
quillity. They strove to control or even suppress their 
natural desires. Epictetus expresses their dominant 
thought in the words: “Seek not that the things which 
happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things 
which happen to be as they are, and you will have a 
tranquil flow of life.” * But this is not the Christian 
idea of peace, though it has often been so regarded. St. 
Thomas Aquinas was right when he said, “Our de- 
sires should find rest in One.’ The peace which is 
derived from God is positive in quality. It controls 
and sublimates the passions by directing them to holy 
ends. It is the perfection of joy which results from 
a complete and harmonious coordination of all the ele- 
ments of personality and their union with God. Peace 
is thus a unifying principle binding thought, desire 
and action in a unitary system in which friction is 
eliminated or reduced to a minimum. 

But probably the outstanding quality of peace is a 
good conscience. No mind divided against itself can 
function aright. There must be freedom and equilib- 
rium before creative work is possible. A sense of 
divine forgiveness is thus essential to peace in its 
highest form. Nor is this a stagnant experience. 
There can be no sustained peace without growth. In- 
creasing power directed to the highest ends gives a 
buoyant and undisturbable calm to ‘the soul aa estab- 
lishes concord between it and God. 

One practical result of this concord is quietness of 
temper in our human relationships. The man whose 
soul is composed of inharmonious elements is likely 


1 Epictetus, “The Encheiridion,” VIII. 


GOD AS PEACE 209 


to be a center of discord among his fellows. The man 
whose belief in God rests on the uncertain grounds 
of a tradition that may be undermined is likewise apt 
to be a disturber of the peace. Most of the defenders 
of the faith, the men who have an eye for heresy in 
their fellows, are men who are not at peace in their 
own hearts. Subconsciously they are afraid that the 
foundations of their faith will not stand examination, 
and in their fear they act the same part in every age. 
In one age they force Socrates to drink the hemlock, 
in another they crucify Jesus, and in others burn 
Cranmer at the stake and excommunicate all who do 
not repeat their outworn shibboleths. But the man 
who has the inward repose given by an unshakable 
conviction that he is vitally related to God, and that 
therefore no harm can come to him, is always genial 
and tolerant in his relations to others, no matter how 
far he may be removed from them in opinion. 

Thus peace in the popular sense of amity in social 
contacts is a by-product. It is, as St. Paul tells us, the 
fruit of the Spirit of God, which works for the com- 
mon welfare, making due allowance for temperamen- 
tal, racial, and other differences, banishing fear and 
suspicion and overcoming evil with good. And while 
resistance to evil is sometimes unavoidable, the ulti- 
mate ideal is a social order in which all the members 
will be so thoroughly imbued with the arts and graces 
of a godly life that their mutual relations will be un- 
marred by misunderstanding or friction. 


III 


In their yearning for peace, men have sought to find 
it by many roads. Torn by the everlasting conflict 


210 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


that goes on within the soul between the physical and 
the spiritual, between the worldly and the ideal, between 
inclination and duty, many have withdrawn from the 
‘arena of action. They have become monks and re- 
‘cluses and, because they were freed from the storms 
and stresses of life, have fancied that they were in pos- 
session of this priceless gift. But the peace of isola- 
tion is counterfeit. It is not what Christ meant when 
he said: “My peace I give unto you.’ His peace was 
won by strenuous action at the very heart of the world’s 
need. He did not retire from the struggles of man- 
kind and leave men to find their way out of their diffi- 
culties as best they could. He stayed with them and 
helped them. Instead of running away from tempta- 
tions, he faced and overcame them. The peace of a 
monastery is only partial at best. It is on a side track 
and is therefore of dubious worth. Yet there are mul- 
titudes who still believe that they can satisfy this crav- 
ing of the soul for calm by escape from the common 
obligations of life. Those who close their ears to the 
cries of pain and need which rise from the hearts of 
the broken and despairing, whether on the superstitious 
ground that evil is not real, or on the selfish ground 
that they have no responsibility, are making the same 
mistake as the medieval monk, though with much 
greater selfishness of motive. The rich who live in 
their own exclusive neighborhoods “‘far from the mad- 
ding crowd’s ignoble strife,” and go through life with 
no sympathetic knowledge of the problems of the poor, 
are victims of the same delusion. The peace which 
Jesus promised his disciples can never be realized ex- 
cept through active participation in the affairs of man- 
kind and an earnest desire to cooperate in meeting its 
common obligations. 


GOD AS PEACE 211 


Equally disappointing is the attempt to find peace 
in material prosperity. Much of the restless unhappi- 
ness of men has its origin in the delusion that happiness 
can be bought with money. The same blunder is 
made in the effort to gain security against poverty, ill 
health, or old age. The only protection against the 
distress of mind aroused by the possibility of these and 
other evils is to give them no place in our thinking. But 
that cannot be done in a healthy way by a conscious ef- 
fort to push these inflammatory ideas out of our minds. 
The way of escape from the damage they cause is to 
devote our energies to relief of the world’s ills. This 
course of action withdraws our attention from our- 
selves and we discover the truth of the many-sided law 
that the way to find peace is to lose it in a higher aim. 

In the light of these reflections, it is evident that peace 
must be earned in action. There is no discharge in the 
truceless war with evil. Peace in the Christian sense 
is the fruit of victory over the world. None who is a 
mere spectator of the combat can understand the mean- 
ing of this gift of God which the world can neither give 
nor takeaway. This explains why neither Omar Khay- 
yam of old nor Henry Adams in our own time ever 
realized its blessedness. 

It is also futile for men to try to find peace by com- 
promise with evil. They lose their self-respect in the 
effort, and the respect of others as well. Yet there are 
multitudes who never utter their real convictions. They 
are afraid to speak out and thus their minds lose that 
limpid quality which is essential to lofty character. 
Only the light, energy, and joy, of God can give as- 
cendancy to the spiritual in our nature, and peace is 
found only in the realm of the spiritual. 


212 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


IV 


The soul of man is a microcosm—a miniature of the 
universe. Within this little world a constant warfare 
goes on, either actually or potentially. This warfare 
is a picture of the state of the outside world. The evil 
impulse seeks to overcome the good; the selfish to dis- 
place the social. The carnal strives for mastery over 
the spiritual. Hence there is no finality in the acquisi- 
tion of peace. It cannot be placed in a deposit vault 
to be kept safe against every attack. Peace is the fruit 
of a continued process. It shrivels and decays when 
it 1s protected from the open weather. The popular 
idea of peace breaks down at this point. The multitude 
always interprets peace in negative terms as freedom 
from strife. But there is always strife—where there is 
life. Nature pulsates with aggression. Even the seed 
in the ground must assert its rights or it will be elbowed 
to its death, 

In the end much is lost in any critical situation by 
a refusal to face facts. Idealists, painting wonderful 
pictures of the Federation of the World, nearly always 
overlook the basal truth that man is a fighting animal. 
Though he loves peace, he does not love it enough to 
suffer what he regards as injustice without a fight. 
The normal man will answer blow with blow; nor are 
there any signs upon our spiritual horizons to suggest 
that the day is near at hand when this will not be so. 
The instinct to fight is deeply imbedded in human 
nature. How inconsistent it is for church assemblies 
to pass resolutions against war, while themselves en- 
gaging in disruptive strife! 

St. Paul, with practical sagacity, saw the difficulty 
of avoiding conflict and the injustice of saying that it 


GOD AS PEACE 213 


is always wrong. There is rich wisdom in his advice: 
“Tf it be possible as much as in you lieth, be at peace 
with all men.” This takes due account of the fact, ap- 
parent to every competent observer, that there are many 
people who are still in a primitive stage of spiritual 
growth. They do not understand the meaning of jus- 
tice in their social relations. They are self-centered, 
aggressive, and always ready to resort to force to ac- 
complish their ends. It would be sheer folly to give 
an unconditional command to the Christian ‘“‘to live 
peaceably with all men.’ This would put him at the 
mercy of ignorant or even brutal inferiors. 

Here again, as in all the other relations to which 
reference has been made, the secret of a peaceful mind ,, 
is the indwelling spirit of God. Conflict, even armed — 
conflict, may sometimes be necessary, but when the God 
of peace is domiciled in the heart its essential calm 
will remain undisturbed amidst every fluctuation of 
circumstance. This divine indwelling is the foundation 
of peace. Only when God is in us is it possible to 
restrain the irritation that uncurbed would inflame 
both our neighbors and ourselves, or to treat those 
whose attitude toward us is hostile in a conciliatory 
manner. 

Intolerance is one of the most prolific causes of fric- 
tion among men. Selfishness, pride, ambition, and 
jealousy are also disturbing elements in their inter- 
course with one another. These qualities are inherent in 
human nature. They are a part of man’s inheritance. 
How can they be kept in subjection, and their essential 
vigor sublimated into virtue? The love of God alone 
will work this transformation and, in working it, will 
incidentally give peace to the soul. God in the heart 
of man is peace, the peace which the world will never 


214 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


know until it gives God the central place in its thought, 
motives, and affections. Then war will be impossible 
because its cause will have been removed. Meantime, 
every political plan or agreement to outlaw or abolish 
war will fail, because such plans overlook its roots and 
cause—the natural injustice, selfishness, and intoler- 
ance of the unregenerate human mind. 


CHAPTER XVII 
GOD AS JOY 


I 


It is a truism to say that, at its best, life is a hard 
struggle. Sooner or later every man confirms this ob- 
servation in his experience, and finds it difficult to 
answer the question, whether his measure of happiness 
is to be put down on the credit or the debit side of 
the account. Yet the Bible answers the question un- 
hesitatingly and finds the balance on the right side. It 
assures us of the possibility of blessedness which is an- 
other name for joy. The Psalmist rejoices in the God 
of his salvation, and is assured that life is more than 
worth while. ‘My soul shall be joyful in the Lord.” 
“Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.” 

In the New Testament this assurance is even stronger. 
It strikes the note of exultant gladness with intense and 
recurrent beat. Blessedness is a definite promise to 
the pure in heart, the meek, the peacemaker, and even 
to those who suffer persecution and tribulation for 
the sake of righteousness. The power, permanence, 
and exuberant fullness, of the believer’s joy are con- 


tinually set forth in its teaching. That the source of , , 


joy is in God is shown in the statement that there is 
rejoicing in heaven when a sinner repents. Christ also 
experienced joy in his saving work, and from its con- 


templation was able to endure the pain and humiliation 
215 


216 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


of the cross. The joy of the Lord is the believer’s 
final reward. 

Thus whatever the ultimate facts upon which we 
may agree, it is plain that the Bible teaches that joy 
may be the portion of every man who finds the true 
way of life. With many devout souls this would 
conclude the discussion of the problem. They ask for 
nothing more than what the Bible has to say upon any 
question, But with a multitude of others, this is not 
enough. They demand that the teachings of the Bible 
be confirmed in experience; failing that, they are likely 
to remain in doubt or even hostile to an idea seeking 
their franchise without other support. Nor is it legiti- 
mate to say that this is an erroneous attitude. It is a 
fact, and therefore it must be met. And after all, the 
world owes a great debt to the men who refuse to accept 
truth on authority, however exalted that authority may 
be. Until we have worked a doctrine out in our own 
experience, itis of doubtful value. If no one had ever 
questioned the venerable authorities there could never 
have been any scientific progress. We should still be- 
lieve the world to be flat and the center of the universe 
or that the death of Jesus was a ransom paid to the 
Devil to emancipate man. Thus it is a wholesome 
thing that when the facts of daily life seem to run 
counter to the principles enunciated by the law, the 
church, or even the Bible, we should be constrained to 
find out the truth by a sincere and rigid investigation. 
It is not a mark of virtue to accept what we have been 
taught without verification, As Sir J. R. Seeley said in 
PECCE UE OMO 


It is always easy for thoughtless men to be orthodox, 
yet to grasp with any strong practical apprehension the 


GOD AS JOY 217 


theology of Christ is as hard as to practice his moral 
law. Yet if he meant anything by his constant denun- 
ciation of hypocrites, there is nothing which he would 
not have visited with sterner censure than that short cut 
to belief which many persons take when, overwhelmed 
with the difficulties which beset their minds, and afraid 
of damnation, they suddenly resolve to strive no longer, 
but giving their minds a holiday, to rest content with 
saying that they believe and acting as if they did. A 
melancholy end of Christianity indeed! Can there be 
such a disfranchised pauper class among the citizens of 
the New Jerusalem? 


No true Protestant, however dogmatic his temper, 
could subscribe to the principle enunciated by Newman 
in the preface to his “Essay on Development”: “He 
now’ submits every part of the book to the judgment 
of the Church, with whose doctrine on the subjects of 
which he treats he wishes all his thoughts to be coinci- 
Gene: 

If therefore we have reason to doubt the Biblical as- 
surance of joy, we are making no mistake in analyzing 
our experience to find the truth. No wise man is will- 
ing to rest on an unverified assumption without at least 
attempting its verification. However strong the pre- 
sumption is that a Biblical doctrine is true, we are not 
justified in accepting it without an effort to confirm 
it in our own experience. Its real value for us de- 
pends upon our doing so, The truths of the Bible must 
be assimilated or they remain beyond the circumference 
of practical interest. There is no virtue or possible 
benefit from saying “‘we believe” where we have not a 
vital understanding of the questions involved. For 
an uneducated man to profess the conviction that the 
theory of Einstein is sound is meaningless, and many 


218 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


a profession of religious faith is equally without value. 
A borrowed or second-hand religion is never vital. 


II 


For ages, in one form or another, man has been ask- 
ing himself whether life is worth living. In one sense 
this is an academic problem, for we have to live 
whether we like it or not, though James Thomson, in 
“The City of Dreadful Night,’ makes the dismal 


preacher say: 


Lo, you are free to end it when you will, 
Without the fear of waking after death. 


But whatever our ultimate answer to the question, 
to cut the knot by suicide is a denial of every funda- 
mental instinct, and it is probably true that no sane or 
at least balanced man has ever done so. On the other 
hand, we have much to gain and nothing to lose by dis- 
covering the truth, for the mind is never easier than 
when it knows and accepts the inevitable whether it is 
desirable or not. Most of our mental anguish comes 
from worry over issues, the outcome of which we can 
not foresee. One of the most certain grounds of peace 
is the truth. 

No argument is needed to prove that there is a vast 
amount of sorrow, tragedy, and disappointment, in 
human life. There is a great risk in birth, not only 
to the mother who may die in giving life to another, but 
also to the child who may be deformed in body or mind, 
or later may turn out to be a bitter failure. We have 
only to read the daily paper to realize how widespread is 
the net of human misery. All around is sin, crime, 


GOD AS JOY 219 


accident, and despair. Little imagination is necessary 
to bring home to us the likelihood that our day of trial 
will come if it has not arrived already. II! health only 
awaits the years. Bereavement is certain. Perhaps 
through no fault of ours all that seems to make life 
worth while will be ruthlessly snatched away. What- 
ever our faith.in immortality, when we stand before the 
open grave, we feel with Ruskin how impotent are the 
“wild love and the keen sorrow to give one instant’s 
pleasure to the pulseless heart.” It is not strange that 
Anaxagoras described the mausoleum as the ghost 
of wealth turned into stone. 

Yet in spite of all that can be said, the wonder is 
that there is so much pleasure and happiness in the 
world. Nature has a remarkable art in protecting her 
children against the pain she causes. And while trouble 
and sorrow are with us continually, we are quick to 
avail ourselves of every cessation of their activities 
and to find happiness in the intervals. If we were so 
constituted that we spent much of our time in visualiz- 
ing the probabilities of disaster, life would be dark in- 
deed. 

Here we should bear in mind that what the Bible 
promises is joy and not pleasure or happiness. Jesus 
never gave the assurance to his disciples that they would 
be happy. On the contrary, he told them that they 
would be persecuted and would have to bear a cross. 
What we call happiness depends largely on what hap- 
pens. There is an etymological relation between hap- 
piness and happening. Since we cannot always control 
our circumstances, we cannot always be happy, nor 
would we appreciate it if we could, for the soul has 
its weathers and our enjoyment of the sunshine is in- 
tensified by our recollection of the rain and storm. 


> 


220 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


This is even more true of pleasure, which is a restricted 
form of happiness. Its appeal is for the moment, and 
usually it is not cumulative in its effect. Thus the direct 
pursuit of pleasure or happiness is never successful. 
Failure to realize this is what has marked so many 
youthful faces with the lines of disappointment and has 
resulted in a cynical attitude toward life. 

Those of the older generation are prone to censure 
the young as being given over to a wild pursuit of 
pleasure through indulgence of the appetites and the 
stimulation of the senses. But youth is much the same 
in every age with the exception that our time affords 
greater opportunity for the gratification of natural de- 
sires through the greater control over the powers of na- 
ture and their application to personal ends. The old re- 
straints have been broken down by the telephone, the 
motor car, and other agencies of civilization. It is 
futile and shortsighted to make comparisons where the 
factors of the equation are different. We are safe in 
the conclusion that in every age there has been a sharp 
struggle between the natural and the spiritual man. 
St. Paul’s vivid description of this conflict gains its 
force from the fact that he is describing not merely his 
own but a universal experience. Our lack of happiness 
is due not alone to the accidents and disappointments 
we suffer but also to the realization that we have not 
made the best of our opportunities. Our restlessness 
is a symptom of our unrealized potentialities. 


III 


Joy is one of the profoundest of experiences and 
may be described as a sense of harmony induced in the 
soul by the assurance of the highest well-being. Hap- 


GOD AS JOY 221 


piness is superficial. It differs from joy as the surface 
of the ocean differs from its depths. Sometimes the sur- 
face is calm and at others turbulent, but the lower 
levels remain undisturbed by any changes going on 
above. To be joyful there must be an abiding peace, 
possible only when the whole personality is functioning 
aright, not alone in itself, but also in relation to God. 

One of the surest marks of joy is growth. We have 
seen that pleasure has no cumulative effect. The appe- 
tites become jaded through gratification and an in- 
creasing stimulus is needed to produce the old effects. 
But the opposite is true of joy. Whenever we ex- 
perience it, our souls are enlarged. There is no reac- 
tion. That is what Tennyson meant by “the glory of 
going on.” The underlying reason for this satisfac- 
tion is the inner consciousness of a developing life. 
We know that we are making head against every inimi- 
cal influence. This is another way of saying that we 
are at peace with God. When a man is assured that he 
is drawing upon an illimitable source of power, he is 
not overawed by any difficulty. He knows that he can 
endure every pain, bear every burden, and withstand 
every disappointment. Joy is the assurance of a sub- 
conscious flow of strength from the infinite reservoir ° 
—God. 

There are several occasions of joy on its receptive 
or passive side. The first of these is that of memory. 
We recall the great experiences through which we have 
passed, childhood with its delights, youth with its spirit 
of adventure and promise of achievement, and man- 
hood with its maturer blessings and the opening up of 
new vistas. Recollection brings these all back again 
and enables us to retrace the journey we have taken 
without the distress of the pain and bafflings of the 


222 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


spirit which attended it as we moved forward and up- 
ward. “The joy of our salvation” is proved by the 
progress we have made and the conviction that God has 
guided us during the entire journey. 

Then in the second place there is the immediate as- 
~ surance of our hold upon God. This is an indispensable 
condition of joy. When a man possesses it he is rich 
beyond all material treasure. Money may buy pleasure 
or temporary happiness, but “all the wealth of Ormuz 
or of Ind” cannot bring lasting satisfaction or peace 
of mind. This is possible only to him who is convinced 
that he is living in a spiritual universe, and that the 
God who controls its destinies is an actual power in 
his life. The prophets of Israel, Jesus himself, St. 
Paul, Wycliffe, Bunyan, and other heroes and martyrs 
who dared and achieved great things, were not over- 
borne by the sufferings of this present world, only be- 
cause they knew that God was with them. Theirs was 
an abundant life made possible through their intimate 
relationship with their Father. They were convinced 
that his presence went with them and gave them rest 
and peace, and that he would stand by them until their 
victory was won. This is the secret of the great 
heroes of the faith in every age. When a man is con- 
vinced that God is behind him he becomes formidable 
and even invincible. He is the cutting edge, sharper 
than any sword, by which the word of God divides 
truth from error, justice from injustice, and selfish- 
ness from the common welfare. Such men have al- 
ways been the instruments of righteousness and the 
mainstay of the race. 

Again, joy is accentuated by the hope of better days 
to come. Particularly is this true when the sky has 
been darkened by the vicissitudes of life. Man is 


GOD AS JOY 223 


never long content with the present. “We look before 
and after,’ and if the balance is on the right side, our 
gaze is forward rather than backward. This is “‘the 
blessed hope’’ which has always animated the true Chris- 
tian. The future is secure when we are assured that 
God has been with us in the past and that we are in 
vital communion with him now. 


IV 


Thus far we have been speaking of joy on its pas- 


sive side, for the most part, as indicated by the presence , 


sa” 


of God in man’s heart. But this is not enough. Joy 
has also an active side. It must be creative if it is to be 
sustained. Like every other gift it is not an end in it- 
self. While God is doubtless happy in our happiness 
and joyful in our joy, that is not the reason for his 
favor. It reaches beyond us to his far-sweeping pur- 
pose. One of the Psalmist’s most discerning prayers is, 
“Forsake not the works of thine own hands.” There 
is a remarkable depth of insight in these words, for 
even if God were only an oriental despot, who in a 
capricious mood had made man for a plaything, such 
an appeal would reach his inmost heart. 

The deepest satisfaction always comes from those 
things into which the best that is in us has been put. 
The mother finds delight in her child with whom she 
shares her life and for whom she makes a multitude 
of sacrifices. The poet’s joy is in his poem, the artist’s 
in his picture, the engineer’s in his bridge, the archi- 
tect’s in the building he designed. Whatever men cre- 
ate gives them a sense of achievement, the intensity of 
which depends upon the measure of themselves that has 
gone into the creation, This is a quality they share 


224 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


with God. We are safe in the inference that he 
also has joy in what he has made in a measure that 
is infinitely deeper than our human joy because his 
achievement and design are so much larger than ours. 
No man can create life. All that he can do is to re- 
assemble materials already in existence, whereas God 
with far-visioned purpose working with infinite pa- 
tience has created the universe and man with all his 
wonderful possibilities, including his capacity for suf- 
fering, love, thought, and sacrifice. 

This brings us to the question as to how we are to 
take the potential gift of joy which is ours by virtue 
of our inheritance and keep it healthy and strong. Un- 
selfish action is the key to the secret. Wherever man 
has a purpose and believes in its realization, however 
far off the goal may be, he will be buoyed up by a sense 
of joy that will withstand every disappointment. 
Strangely enough the greatest danger of depression and 
cynicism is in times of prosperity. This is true both 
of the individual and the nation. The rich nomads, 
who move with the seasons from Newport to Palm 
Beach and thence to the Riviera, are rarely happy, not 
to speak of being joyful. It was when Israel was at 
the height of her glory that she gave expression to her 
most pessimistic utterance: “Vanity of vanities, saith 
the preacher; all is vanity.’ Again, 1t was when she 
was crushed under the ruthless heel of the conqueror 
who had carried most of her best people into exile 
that she sang some of her most joyful songs. Para- 
doxical though it may seem in the light of the universal 
desire for health, wealth, and success, man’s joy has 
always been richest when his troubles were greatest. 

If we are to realize the fullness of joy which Christ 
promised to his disciples, we must fulfill one condi- 


GOD AS JOY 225 


tion. A sustained and buoyant calm can only be ob- 
tained by the complete coordination of our powers with 
the purpose of God. So long as our primary thought is 
our own welfare we are doomed to disappointment and 
eventual pessimism. Life is to be found only by losing 
it. As we give ourselves to the cause of human wel- 
fare in the abolition of ignorance, the increase of jus- 
tice, the relief of distress, and the deepening of the 
sense of God in the life of every man, we shall under- 
stand the meaning of that blessedness which Jesus 
promised to his disciples, as we share with God the 
joy of creative service. But it must be admitted that 
such phrases are only vague generalizations. That is 
what makes so much of our moral teaching ineffective. 
What is justice or sympathy, not as defined in words 
but in deeds? Perhaps it is impossible to frame an 
answer that will be intelligible for all, but it is cer- 
tain that if our first thought is the service that we can 
render to the kingdom of God, we shall have a deep 
and abiding joy which no circumstance can take from 
us. Selfishness is the surest road to the defeat of the 
soul’s thirst for God. 

There is an ancient story which illustrates this truth 
in a striking manner. Probably it originated in a me- 
dieval monastery or even further back. Like most 
tales of the kind it has taken on many different forms, 
though always with the same essential meaning. It is 
the story of a woman who died and to her amazement 
found herself at the gates of the lower world waiting 
for admission. But she could not be resigned to the 
justice of her fate and raised such a commotion that she 
at last attracted attention in heaven and God sent an 
angel to find out whether there was any justice in her 
plea. First she stridently asserted her respectability 


vy 


226 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


on earth, but at last under the urgent cross-questioning 
of the messenger who asked whether she had ever been 
kind to any one on earth, she recalled that once she had 
given acarrot toatramp. When this word was brought 
to him, God said to the angel: “A carrot is something ; 
take it back to her, and tell her that if she hangs on to 
it you will draw her up to heaven.” This the angel did 
and after fixing a cord to the carrot and handing it 
to the woman, he started heavenward with the cord in 
his hand. Clutching her carrot eagerly the woman 
found herself lifted upward, and moving rapidly toward 
heaven where she believed she belonged. Soon the other 
denizens of the lower world, noticing what was happen- 
ing, clutched her skirts, and as they moved upward with 
her still others grasped their skirts and feet, until it 
looked as though hell was to be emptied through that 
one kindly deed. 

But the woman feeling the increasing weight looked 
beneath her and saw what was going on. Instead of 
being happy in the service she was thus rendering to 
other unfortunates, she was frightened and cried out, 
“Let go! this is my carrot.” Immediately the cord 
broke and the entire company fell back into the place 
where they belonged. Underneath the exaggerated re- 
alism of this story, it expresses in dramatic form the 
fundamental law that only in ministering to others do 
men find the real satisfactions of life, whereby their 
own souls are mellowed, refined, enriched, and given the 
sense of spiritual well-being which Jesus meant when 
he said “that my joy might remain in you and that 
your joy might be full.”” One final thought to be kept 
in mind is this, that none can reach this lofty ideal 
except as he gives himself without reservation to God, 
and dedicates himself to the divine will. Then in the 


GOD AS JOY 227 


prophet’s words “his reward will be with him and his 
work before him,” in the peace and security which 
sustain him and the assurance of his soul’s continued 
upward flight in the ever opening eternity. Perfect joy 
is to do God’s will in faith that it can be done, and in 
confidence that at last it will be evident ‘‘that all things 
work together for good.” 





SECTION IV: GOD IN ESSENCE 


CHAPTER XVIII 
GOD AS LIFE 


I 


Many noted thinkers, including philosophers and 
biologists, have tried to define life but without success. 
No exercise of the mind is more difficult than the defini- 
tion even of simple inanimate objects. When our ver- 
bal wall has been reared and carefully inspected, we 
usually overlook some fissure through which the magic 
substance that we had hoped to imprison escapes. But 
the impossibility of defining life is evident on reflec- 
tion since we have no other terms than those of itself 
with which to explain it. At best we can only hope to 
describe some of its characteristic marks. 

While the word “‘life’’ is used in a variety of senses, 
its fundamental meaning is that quality shared by plant, 
animal, and man, which constitutes its livingness as 
distinguished from the lifelessness of the inorganic 
world. The difficulty of finding the line between what 
is living and what is not is illustrated in a nut or seed 
which, to the outward eye, gives no more evidence of 
life than a pebble. There is, however, in the seed a 
potentiality which under the proper conditions will be- 
come actualized in a plant or tree. But when we say 
that the development of an oak is “due to forces resi- 
dent in the acorn” we are only deluding ourselves with 

229 


230 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


words and are certainly giving no explanation of what 
has taken place. In all its manifestations life presents 
itself as an insoluble mystery, excepting as we fall back 

-upon the one adequate though undifferentiated explana- 
tion of ourselves and the universe—God. 

No biologist has yet been able to give a list of marks 
of life which has won general acceptance, but probably 
none will deny that it is always characterized either 
actually, as in the case of the plant or animal, or po- 
tentially, as in the case of the seed, by individuality, 
self-preservation, reproduction, growth, self-determina- 
tion, and in the higher animals and. man, certain emo- 
tional and mental qualities. These characteristics all 
rest upon a physical base. Chemical changes are as 
much a part of the organic as of the inorganic world, 
and are more intricate in the former than in the latter. 
Yet this does not justify the physicist in maintaining 
that life can be explained in terms of mechanism. 
More than ether, atom, and molecule, is necessary to 
account for it, though it will sometimes economize 
thought to regard life in terms of chemical changes, if 
it is not forgotten that these changes are but an aspect 
of it and not an explanation. 

For at the outset we may as well face the fact that 
in its essence life is beyond the reach of our minds. 
We can only seize upon its external manifestations. 
Our bodies are made of the same materials as the in- 
organic world about us. We can assemble the ma- 
terials for the making of a man; so much carbon, so. 
much oxygen, so much iron, and the proper propor- 
tions of other elemental substances. Yet the man 
would be as far off as ever. Even though we had the 
skill to arrange these materials in the form of an 
Apollo, they would still lack the one thing needful— 


GOD AS LIFE 231 


what the ancients called spirit, because they identified 
breath and life. 

Nor is it possible to explain how this organizing 
principle which gives individuality to every living thing 
first came to be. Scientists have offered various ex- 
planations. The suggestion has been made that there 
is an “organic corpuscle” which is immortal and only 
awaits a favorable environment to burgeon in living 
forms. But this is too shadowy a conjecture to afford 
any intellectual satisfaction. In the nature of things 
it can never be proved, nor can it be made to appear 
reasonable. The intense heat and cold to which the 
earth was subjected for ages before it was ready for 
life, would seem to preclude such a possibility. Life, 
as we know it, can not be conceived as existing in such 
extremes of temperature. 

A second and more likely suggestion concerning the 
origin of life is that of spontaneous generation. Ac- 
cording to this hypothesis at some far distant day, the 
chemical conditions were ripe in the primal ooze for 
the production of the first protoplasm. From this 
protoplasm all living things, plant, animal, and man, 
have been derived. Nor is it an adequate objection 
to this conjecture to point out that there is no evidence 
of spontaneous generation in our time. For the con- 
ditions have changed. It probably took millions of 
years to pass from the chemical substance of life to 
the organic structure of that substance. That we are 
unable to condense the process into a few hours is not 
surprising. In a few seconds we can destroy life that 
all the scientists in the world can not restore. There 
are some processes which are not reversible. All things 
considered, this is the only satisfactory hypothesis apart 
from “special creation” which raises as many difficul- 


282 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


ties as it solves. Ii all living things have been instan- 
taneously created by the fiat of an all-wise God, how 
are we to account for the noxious, apparently useless, 
and grotesque forms of life? 

There is no danger of intellectual pride in giving 
our franchise to spontaneous generation as the more 
likely origin of life, if we bear in mind that this is 
not offered as an explanation of life. It is merely a 
description of the processes involved and does not seek 
to state why the succession of stages has taken place. 
_.Thus evolution has as much need of God as the ulti- 
' mate cause of life as has special creation. It does not 
matter what means were used in creating life, whether 
the process was instantaneous or zonic. God is an in- 
tegral factor in any equation offering a solution to this 
problem. 


Il 


Whatever the antecedent process by which life ap- 
peared upon the earth, the supreme fact is that it is 
here. It is our priceless possession and therefore re- 
quires the wisest care that we can bring to bear upon 
its conservation and development. Everywhere life is 
in evidence in forms without number, yet so unique that 
our very blood cells are probably as distinctive as our 
finger tips. Certainly “all flesh is not the same flesh,” 
though it is likely that this truth has a much wider 
reach than St. Paul understood, so that if we had the 
refinement of method to make the test, we could see 
that it distinguishes individuals as well as species. In 
every nook and corner of the world life can be found 
exploring, exploiting, trying to secure a foothold. It is 
in the air, in the deepest depths of the ocean, on the 


GOD AS LIFE 233 


top of the frozen mountains, at both the poles, in 
gloomiest caverns—and on the broad sunlit spaces it 
is so abundant that man has to wage a constant combat 
with other forms of being that are disputing his title 
deeds and making mock of his legal sanctions. The 
weed never yields in its effort to push out the culti- 
vated plant; the boll weevil would eat the fiber with 
which man seeks protection against the weather; ten 
thousand enemies seen and unseen match their wits _ 
against his to get his food or his place, or even more 
ambitiously to feed upon his blood. 

The whole round world is covered with the web of 
life in which there is a constant drama of love and 
death. The stream moves on; new generations rise 
and old ones pass from the stage; but life never yields 
to defeat. It continues through countless changes and 
even in its lower forms displays remarkable tenacity 
of purpose and great resource in adjusting itself to new 
conditions. Hunger and love are its controlling pas- 
sions; yet back of these with their terrific impulsions, 
lies an unwavering effort to express itself in nobler 
forms—in beauty, and in sacrificial service. The su- 
preme glory of life lies in its readiness to die for other 
than individual ends. Nature offers countless illustra- 
tions of this central principle. The mother giving her- 
self for her child, the soldier for his country, are 
merely typical of what can be seen in any meadow on 
a summer afternoon. 

From the point of view of man’s experience, the 
climax of life is reached in himself. Here the vari- 
ous qualities which command admiration even in the 
lowest forms of being are displayed upon a wider 
stage and appear in the light of the knowing mind. 
In man life becomes conscious of itself, and in the 


234 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


power of reason has another instrument with which 
to mold its own destiny. Reason directs powers that 
hitherto have only dreamed or stumbled forward half 
awake and controls them until they move with confi- 
dence in the assurance of their capacity to subdue ma- 
terial obstacles and bind them to its unconquerable 
will. : 

History is replete with the records of the victories 
that life is always winning. No sooner is one rampart 
scaled than another and higher one is sought. Life is 
never satisfied with what it has achieved. The done 
seems petty, aS over against the vast undone. Now 
man swims under the ocean like a fish, flies through the 
air like a bird, speaks across continents like a god—and 
yet he feels that his conquests have only begun. 

The indomitable spirit of life and its flaming pur- 
pose are revealed in one of its last geographical goals 
not yet realized but destined to be crowned with vic- 
tory. The doom of Mount Everest is sealed. Some 
day in the near future man will stand upon that de- 
flant peak. How do we know? Because insurgent life 
in man has willed that it shall not be stopped until it 
reaches the roof of the world. Nor is this a blind chal- 
lenge hurled against the last stronghold of impersonal 
nature. Man knows. Forty years ago he tried to 
scale these heights and reached a level of 21,000 feet. 
Twenty years later his rising spirit pushed 2,000 feet 
beyond his previous achievement. Fifteen years ago 
he mounted still higher and added another 2,000 feet, 
reaching a height of 25,000 feet. Three years ago 
he climbed to 27,000, and in 1924, at the cost of the 
death of two unflinching heroes, he stood on Everest’s 
shoulder, 28,000 feet above the sea. Some day he will 
master the 1,000 feet remaining and his eye will range 


GOD AS LIFE 235 


full circle across the mountains of Afghanistan—to- 
ward the Mesopotamian plains, the Indian ocean, the 
haunting vale of Kashmir, or wherever his fancy di- 
rects. 

Man will succeed because he grows in wisdom and 
stature, whereas a mountain’s limits are fixed. Every 
failure whets man’s spirit for higher effort. Everest 
fights desperately and with many terrible weapons. 
Frost, ice, beetling crags, rocks that rise sheer, hidden 
abysses, driving blizzards laden with cutting snow and 
hail, and merciless avalanches—these are her agents 
of destruction and she uses them all with intense fury 
against her humblest living adversary who dares to 
violate the sanctities of her summit. But Everest is 
blind while man sees. He learns by experience and 
every defeat strengthens his will to victory. Such is 
life—inexplicable and unconquerable. 


IIT 


In this study we are concerned primarily with life in 
its mental or spiritual aspect. Though, as we have 
seen, we cannot tell what life is, we can learn some 
of its laws by observation, and perhaps profit by our 
knowledge in giving fuller and freer expression to the 
vital forces that are in us. No living thing is inde- 
pendent of the world. No organism can retain its vi- 
tality unless it is in harmony with the reservoir of 
energy we call the universe. Certain processes must go 
on within every organism or it returns to the inorganic 
whence it came. Since energy is always going out from 
living things as the price of being alive, this loss must 
be redressed through the taking in of energy in at 
least an equal amount. There is constant wear and 


236 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


tear in every organism. Fatigue, age, and death show 
that the capacity for self-maintenance is imperfect and 
temporary. 

Technically the building-up process is called “anab- 
olism” and the breaking-down process “‘katabolism,”’ 
and when both processes are thought of together, they 
are called “metabolism.” Thus an organism, for ex- 
ample, the human body, is always trading, and aiming 
to make a profit and build up a surplus of strength. It 
strives to store up energy in potential form so that it 
may be able to meet any crisis that may rise. A brief 
existence is conceivable on a hand-to-mouth basis, but 
when the income only equals the outlay there is no 
margin and a slight accident will cause disaster. This 
is why an organism is much more efficient than any 
mechanism that man has made. It can turn potential 
energy into actual energy with only minimal waste, 
whereas a steam engine is able to utilize only a small 
percentage of the energy of the coal it burns. The 
balancing of the account with something left over as 
capital or reserve is what makes growth possible after 
the machinery has been repaired. Men sometimes 
boast of their inventive skill in making machines, but 
no engine has ever been built which is self-repairing. 
An optician can make a better lens than the human 
eye, but he is helpless when it comes to making one 
that will recreate its worn or injured parts. 

The urge of life pushes on through growth to repro- 
duction. Life is never satisfied to remain where it is. 
This accounts for its aggressiveness and abundance. 
Its genius is—“be fruitful and multiply.” The abun- 
dance thus attained results in the fierce competition 
between individuals and species which causes so much 
distress in the world as the weaker go down in defeat. 


GOD AS LIFE 237 


But on the other hand, through the sharpening of wits 
and the development of strength to meet trials and 
emergencies, the higher forms of life have been made 
possible. 


IV 


The working capital of every man is the life he now 
has. His supreme task is to take that life and enlarge 
and enrich it in every possible way. God has furnished 
it to him, not as a gift but as a trust. Under careful 
management it will increase in every good quality. 
But to do so the laws of life as they work on the 
primary physical level must be observed. In the stress 
and strain of living with its cares and worries, there 
is a constant outgo of spiritual energy. This must be 
returned to the soul or it will decrease in power and 
worth. Muititudes forget this fundamental law. The 
soul is always in process of breaking down and unless 
compensation is made, it will cease to live. One of 
the essential marks of spiritual vitality is growth. But 
in order for the soul to grow, it must hold commerce 
with God and receive from him the increased strength 
which makes growth possible in the form of the re- 
ward he always gives for righteous action. This 1s 
what is meant by the advice of Jesus that we should 
“lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven.” 

A second and equally essential mark of spiritual vi- 
tality is exhibited in its reproductive power. There is 
no life except that which comes from life. This is 
true physically, and it is also true spiritually. Where 
the flame of sacrificial love for truth and right burns 
brightly in any soul, it kindles and sustains the same 
light in other lives. The gravest charge that can be 


nal 


238 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


made against organized religion in our time is that it 
has lost its enthusiasm, the passion for the life of the 
soul which has always characterized Christianity in its 
times of power. There is a spiritual no less than a 
physical “race suicide.”’ When the hearts of men grow 
cold in sympathy and service to their fellows decadence 
has already put its stigma upon their lives. 

The one escape from this disaster is the direction of 
life into wider channels than the interests of the indi- 
vidual. No man can live to himself alone. If he tries 
it he will fail, and his soul will die in the process. Self- 
help, thrift, ingenuity, initiative, and work have been 
extolled by self-regarding moralists with the promise 
of splendid prizes in the form of wealth and power. 
But every such promise is counterfeit because it of- 
fers a perishable reward as a mirage to deceive the 
thoughtless and unwary. So long as men think mainly 
of themselves and what they are going to get out of 
life, their returns will be blighted at the core. The 
fruit of their labors will prove to be “Dead Sea apples.” 
This accounts for the fear, suspicion, cynicism, and 
essential unhappiness which mark the lives of so many 
of the rich and successful. 

“Fe that findeth his life shall lose it.” These words 
are not a clever paradox but the statement of one of 
the fundamental laws of life. The heroes of the 
human race are not the ruthless individualists who 
climbed to wealth and power over the disappointments 
and failures of their contemporaries, but the men who 
spent their lives unto death in discovering truth, fur- 
thering justice, and establishing higher ideals—in brief, 
in serving mankind. Man is an individual only in the 
sense in which a leaf lives a life separate from the other 
leaves upon the same tree. Plainly its welfare depends 


GOD AS LIFE 239 


upon the welfare of the tree, though sometimes an un- 
healthy tree will throw most of its strength into one 
branch and give it a specious appearance of health. 
Such is the relation that the individual man bears to 
the community. If he draws to himself more than 
his share of material good because of the accident of 
position or any other cause, society suffers. One does 
not need to be a “radical” to see that the distribution 
of wealth in the present social order is unjust. The 
great material rewards usually go to men of narrow 
outlook; the trader, the banker, the promoter, and man- 
ager of industry, who are exploiting the increments 
which have come through the pioneers in invention, 
work, science, and the arts. What a topsy-turvy civili- 
zation is ours! The thinker, the teacher, the real 
creator of values, working unheralded in his laboratory, 
must be content with a bare existence, while all around 
them men with minds of lower power live in “kings’ 
palaces.” 

That the widespread belief in material success—indi- 
cating a paralysis of the spiritual faculties in the popu- 
lar mind—is so deep-seated that men are not censured 
for using positions of public trust to enrich themselves 
—does not alter the fundamental law that the only 
abiding rewards are those which result from devotion 
to the common good. It is a pity that the word “so- 
cialism” has become associated with a party of dubious 
wisdom so that its mention kindles angry emotions in 
many minds. Socialism should be the complement of 
individualism in the interests and outlook of every 
rounded personality. As a matter of fact, in practi- 
cal affairs this is already the case. The public school, 
the highway, the post office, and other socialized or 
partly socialized activities, indicate that no sensible man 


240 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP. 


is any longer a thoroughgoing individualist. But we 
still have a long way to go before the idea that his 
interests consist in reducing his public service to a mini- 
mum can be erased from the mind of the average citi- 
zen. 

Beyond the community lies the entire world of man- 
kind with all its varieties of nationality, race, color, 
political and religious creed, and conflicting hopes and 
aims. The purpose of life in its highest forms is to 
integrate these differences so that mankind may become 
in reality what it is now in name—a brotherhood. But 
only a few men have the imagination to visualize man- 
kind guided and controlled by its intelligence and mov- 
ing on to assured victory over its enemies, undisciplined 
emotion, social and religious prejudice, ignorance, 
greed, and hate. Life will eventually be triumphant, 
but in the meantime he who would live adventurously 
now must expand his horizons until they include men 
of violent antipathies, alien races, and differing tradi- 
tions. Life is always enriched by the variety of its 
contacts and even from those with whom we disagree 
profitable lessons can be learned. 

All life is derived from God as the only adequate 
source. “It is he that hath made us, and not we our- 
selves.” Life is therefore a trust and is governed by 
the law of trusts. No man has been given life for his 
own enjoyment. That would not be a large enough 
object to justify God in going to the trouble to create 
it. The divine purpose always reaches beyond the indi- 
vidual, however noble he is in character and attainment. 
To live richly and abundantly, it is essential to “seek 
first the kingdom of God,” through the cultivation of 
the personal virtues, and through devotion to every 
cause that furthers the common welfare. This is the 


GOD AS LIFE 244 


only way in which the trust can be returned to God 
who gave it, together with the increase accruing from 
its proper use. 

When does life end? The answer lies beyond 
human experience. It is a mystery in the present, and 
therefore not surprising that its future is hidden in 
the mists of mystery. This does not mean that there 
is no hope of its permanence, at least in its higher and 
more faithful and fruitful forms. While we know 
nothing of to-morrow, we have faith that it will come— 
faith based upon all our yesterdays. Here it seems 
reasonable to rest upon the faith of Jesus who had no 
doubts of the continuance of life. He was confident 
that it will triumph over death. Hence he assured his 
disciples that in his “Father’s house there are many 
mansions.” 

None has ever returned from the grave to tell of his 
experience in that undiscovered country. We have 
every reason to discount the testimony of those who 
profess to know. They have no data to justify their 
vivid descriptions of the heavenly city. Doubtless it 
is better so. We do not need to know, for we can 
carry on in confidence if we trust in God and do the 
right. 

Once a physician at the bedside of a dying man was 
asked by his patient whether he thought he would re- 
cover. Knowing that it was a fatal illness, he an- 
swered evasively, saying, “You are a very sick man.” 
“T see,’ said the man, “I am going to die. Tell me, 
doctor, ‘What is on the other side?’’’ The doctor re- 
luctantly admitted that he did not know, then bade his 
patient ‘“good-by.” When he reached the door, his 
dog unexpectedly jumped into the house, rejoicing to 
see his master. With a happy inspiration, the doctor 


24:2 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


returned to the sick room and said to the dying man, 
“My dog rushed into your house to see me, though he 
was never here before. He came into a strange place 
confidently, because he knew his master was here. Is 
there not a lesson in this for us? When the summons 
comes, we can cross the dark river eagerly because our 
Master is waiting on the other shore.” This is not 
only life, it is abundant life, the eternal life which is 
the perpetual theme of Jesus in his gospel of victory 


, over death and the grave. God is life: therefore life 


will abide. 


CHAPTER XIX 
GOD AS POWER 


I 


The universe is a stately word which covers wide 
areas of which we are utterly ignorant, but we are safe 
in saying that it is a vast power house. Where the 
central station is located, or whether there is one, no 
man can tell. And though we do not hear the whir 
of the machine, we can see it at work at any moment 
of our existence, which is spent in the presence of a 
ceaseless flow of sustained energy. This energy spins 
the earth on its axis, holds it in place in its circuit of 
the sun, and speeds it on its course with the rest of 
the solar system. It shoots light and heat across the 
depths of space, pulls and pushes the tides in their 
ceaseless rhythm, draws water from arctic ice fields 
and tropic oceans, and distributes it over the earth, 
making life possible for man and beast. It causes the 
grass to grow, the birds to sing, the trees to rustle in 
the wind, the blood to circulate in our veins, the balloon 
to rise, and the stone to fall. 

The immense place that power holds in the thought 
of man is shown by his eagerness to get control of it. 
Here and there it is found condensed in a form ready 
for his use, as for example in forests, coal, and oil 
fields. Civilized nations are prompt to go to war to 
gain what they believe to be their share of these ad- 


vantages. Oil is the stored up sunlight of other ages 
243 


244 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


and is wealth to those who would move easily and read- 
ily from place to place over the earth’s surface. This 
accounts for the continued struggle in which men have 
engaged in order to secure natural resources for their 
own use. 

Power is essential to life. Food, air and water are 
the means by which the primal energy of the universe 
finds access to our bodily machines. They are the fuel 
which gives the strength to keep us going. To live we 
must have a continual supply of power and as yet we 
have devised no direct way of obtaining it. Some day 
this may be done, when man finds the secret of draw- 
ing upon the energy of the sun as the plant does now, 
but in the meantime for his physical existence he must 
devote himself to the task of relating himself to the 
infinite source of power by finding for himself food, 
clothing and shelter. 

The power which is everywhere in evidence in the 
universe, holding together the atom and the star, is 
God in his least personal aspect. There is no other ex- 
planation which will satisfy the mind in its instinctive 
search for the cause of the universal application of 
force manifested in the constant dance of life and the 
ceaseless flow of electrons. Behind matter there is a 
spiritual essence. The apparent solidarity of the rocks 
or of steel melts away before the penetrating gaze of 
the physicist; the tangible capitulates to the intangible, 
and the permanent granite is found to be in a constant 
state of internal turmoil in which atoms swing around 
each other at distances relatively as great as those 
separating the heavenly bodies. God is the essence of 
it all, and in everything that is we have a revelation 
of his power, material, intellectual, or spiritual. 


GOD AS POWER 245 


II 


Man’s need of power is constant. Shut him off from 
the reservoir for a few moments and he will die. His 
need of the air he breathes and burns to keep the en- 
gine of life going is a proof of this fact. He has to 
work vigorously or he will become detached from the 
sources Of supply. This explains why life is a con- 
tinuous struggle. Our environment presses against us 
on every side and threatens to crush us, so that we 
have always to be on guard, There is none so favored 
as to be secure. The poor man toils for the bare ne- 
cessities of existence and it seems to him that his richer 
neighbor is free from danger. But he is wrong in 
this conclusion. If a good environment were all that 
is necessary to achievement and virtue, the children of 
parents of wealth and culture would be the leaders in 
every good enterprise. As a matter of fact they 
rarely equal their fathers in what they do. Few of the 
great men of history had sons who made a name, not- 
withstanding their initial advantages. It is well for 
us that this is so, for if Moses, Newton, and Lincoln 
had been able to transmit their genius to their off- 
spring, a race of supermen would long ago have risen 
and would now hold the masses of mankind in bond- 
age. Nor is the reason for the failure of so many of 
those whose initial advantages were of the best hard 
to discover. The truth is that comfort tends to cut the 
sinews of effort. It is easier to be a worker or a mar- 
tyr in a cabin than in a palace, and the poor man’s 
son with a vision of what he may become is likely to 
go further and to rise higher than the rich man’s son 
who lacks this incentive. But whether a man is poor 
or rich, he has to struggle without ceasing against the 


246 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


sharp press of circumstance or the subtle and destruc- 
tive illusion of the lotus eater. In either case his 
greatest need is power. 

Nor is it alone against his environment that man 
has to struggle. His intensest battles are within him- 
self. Robert Louis Stevenson was only partially right 
in his masterly creation “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” 
He was a pioneer rather than an exhaustive explorer. 
There are not only two but many potential personalities 
in every man. Happy indeed is he in whom virtuous 
wisdom always is in command. The men and women 
we know are not the simple entities they seem to be. 
Each mind is a complex made up of many tendencies, 
some of which are utterly contradictory of others. In 
normal times the dominant quality retains the mastery 
and gives character to the personality. But in times 
of stress or unusual strain the balance is liable to dis- 
turbance and there is often a break or a temporary loss 
of command, and the man acts in a manner which con- 
tradicts all that we have believed him to be. This is 
the reason the world is always ready to accept the 
worst gossip about any person, however honorable the 
position he holds. He may be a great statesman or re- 
ligious leader but if the slightest suspicion is uttered 
against him, the public will be quick to jump to the 
conclusion that he is guilty. Men would be less ready 
in affrming their belief in the truth of malicious gos- 
sip about their neighbors if they realized that in doing 
so they are passing judgment upon themselves and re- 
vealing their lack of character. Perhaps the chief rea- 
son for their promptness in harboring doubts of each 
other’s integrity is instinctive, and rests upon a recogni- 
tion of the narrow margin of their own respectability. 

Thus to retain control over the various factors which 


GOD AS POWER 247 


make up personality and keep them coordinated in a 
system, which presents a consistent front to the world, 
is no light task. Just as a government must be on 
constant guard against the possibility of rebellion and 
have forces at hand ready to suppress it if it should 
occur, so the governing tendency of the mind must be 
always alert to detect any evidence of insubordination 
on the part of those elements which are held in re- 
straint. The various passions are liable to assert them- 
selves at any time and, unless they are curbed, they 
will throw off all authority and seize the reins. Then 
the personality loses its equilibrium and unless the 
former tendencies regain control, a new and different 
personality appears. Mr. Hyde drives Dr. Jekyll from 
the drawing-room into the basement of unrealized 
aspirations. Hence the wisest and sanest men require 
a steady influx of power to keep their faculties prop- 
erly balanced and coordinated and to protect them 
against a mind divided against itself. This is what 
the Psalmist meant when he affirmed his need of God: 
“My soul cries out for God, for the living God.” In 
the struggle to retain an integrated personality, man’s 
greatest asset is “the power of God unto salvation.” 


III 


So far we have been speaking of physical conflict 
which, however intense, is only the beginning of man’s 
struggle on his upward journey. The physical merges 
into the spiritual where the battle grows more acute. 
It is a remarkable fact that has been largely overlooked 
by the majority of Christian preachers in all ages that 
Jesus did not spend much of his thought in condemning 
the grosser or physical sins. Perhaps he took it for 


248 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


granted that all men understood the primary moralities. 
But he also understood that the world requires only a 
formal or conventional acquiescence toward an ethical 
standard that is largely negative in content. “Thou 
shalt not commit the obvious sin” is the command of 
society which pursues the matter no further and has 
nothing to say against the sins of the mind: intel- 
lectual dishonesty in affirming beliefs without having 
thought out the reasons; pride which gives too high an 
estimate of one’s own worth and a correspondingly low 
estimate of his neighbor’s; jealousy which poisons the 
soul and deforms the sense of fair play; and hypocrisy 
which undermines integrity of character. 

To guard against the inroads of these destructive 
qualities and many others of a kindred nature is man’s 
real battle, and it cannot be won without an almost il- 
limitable supply of power. This is why the saints and 
seers of all ages have affirmed that man can only be 
saved by the grace of God. Knowledge is not enough 
to protect him against the defects of his nature. How 
often a man acts against what he knows to be right! 
People worry themselves into the madhouse over trivi- 
alities that they can not control. They burn them- 
selves out by giving play to evil appetites when their 
intelligence shows clearly that they are bartering a 
priceless inheritance for less than a mess of pottage. 
The mad rush of life goes on not because men do not 
know but because they do not care. It requires more 
energy than they possess, or are willing to use, to 
sublimate their evil tendencies, their greed, pride, and 
envy, into virtuous activities. Yet while the world is 
quick to censure the man who commits a physical sin 
and to brand him as bad, it is usually indifferent toward 
those whose souls are corrupted by worldliness, and 


GOD AS POWER 249 


lack of charity and of the other graces of true char- 
acter. 

Thus, if power is necessary in man’s struggles 
against his environment and his passions, it is much 
more essential to hold in check these evil tendencies 
which so often are the defects of the best of qualities— 
defects that rise from lack of proper codrdination and 
emphasis. This was what Jesus meant when he told 
Nicodemus that he must be born from above. The sins 
of the spirit are too subtle and deep-seated to be ex- 
pelled by any other means than a continual flow of 
power from the central source. Only the life of God 
in the soul of man can purify it of greed, envy, world- 
liness, pride, jealousy, fear, arrogance, and the many 
other vitiating qualities which make it of the earth 
earthy. : 


IV 


So far we have been thinking of power in negative 
terms, for the purpose of warding off evil rather than 
for positive achievement. But man can never be satis- 
fied with negations even though they are virtuous. 
“Thou shalt not” is the burden of the Old Testament 
law: “Thou shalt” is the burden of the New. This is 
what St. Paul meant in his warning “be not overcome 
of evil, but overcome evil with good.” Nor is it enough 
to win on a narrow margin for sometimes a victory 
over temptation is bought at too great a cost. It 
leaves the soul limp and worn without further power 
of resistance. The spirit of man must be buoyant if 
he is to exercise a high influence for good. The church 
has blundered in making resignation one of the major 
Christian virtues, Resignation is dull and passive and 


250 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


is closely akin to fatalism. It is a mark of defeat 
rather than of victory; at least it indicates a suppres- 
sion of the abundant life which is the right of every 
man and which it is the purpose of Christ to give to 
all. 

Wide margins are always necessary if real achieve- 
ment is to be assured. When Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, 
defeated the Romans at the battle of Heraclea, he was 
. unable to follow up his success because it had cost him 
,so much. Outwardly a victory, it was in reality a de- 
feat because he was the aggressor, and so we have the 
striking phrase ““Pyrrhic victory” to set forth the dan- 
ger of fighting without sufficient reserves to follow up 
a victory. This is equally true in the conflicts of the 
soul. There must always be power to go on easily 
after every struggle or the danger of reaction will be 
so great as to become a disturbing element. This ex- 
plains why so many people drop out of the path of 
rectitude in their middle and later years. They do not 
take the trouble to build up a spiritual reserve with the 
result that in the day of crisis they fall. 

Every one knows the necessity for capital in conduct- 
ing a business. Provision must be made against rev 
current periods of depression or the enterprise may be 
submerged. A large percentage of business failures 
is due to this cause rather than to mismanagement. It 
is the same with the soul. It is not enough to conquer 
our disabilities. To use St. Paul’s expressive phrase 
we must become “more than conquerors” if we are to 
have peace and joy in the ceaseless conflict in which 
we are engaged. “There is no discharge in that war,” 
and the only way in which it can be won is by the 
backing which will enable us to withstand the most 
sudden and powerful onrush of the foe. 


GOD AS POWER 251 


There is no promise of immunity against pain and 
sorrow in man’s earthly pilgrimage. We are com- 
passed about on every side with seen and unseen foes. 
We wrestle against principalities and powers. Sooner 
or later grief and disappointment enter every life. 
‘hose modern cults in the Christian church whose main 
purpose is to ward off pain are on the wrong track. 
Pain is a part of the discipline of life and is a neces- 
sary condition in the culture of the soul of fine texture. 
Christ suffered and was made perfect through his suf- 
ferings. His followers who have most nearly approxi- 
mated to his ideal have also suffered. Take the life of 
St. Paul! He was beaten with rods, shipwrecked, 
stoned, imprisoned, starved, and humiliated by inferior 
men, “Without were fightings, within were fears” is 
an epitome of his autobiography. Yet he could say, 
“T can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth 
me.’ Men shrink from the battle and the strife, but 
in so doing they are making their approach from the 
wrong side. What matters is not the weight of the 
load we carry, but the margin of strength that is left 
after it is carried. We may illustrate this again by a 
financial reference. To the man of modest income it 
may seem that his neighbor is extravagant in making 
large expenditures for things he might do without. 
But if his income is correspondingly large, he can do 
so and still grow in wealth much faster than his more 
thrifty critic. Thus it is too much to ask men, with 
Rabbi ben Ezra to— 


welcome each rebuff, 
That turns earth’s smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! 
Be our joys three parts pain! 


252 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


Strive and hold cheap the strain; | 
Learn, nor account the pang; dare never grudge 
the throe! * 


But it is not too much to expect them to accept the 
tribulations of life with the confidence rising from the 
knowledge that they can be borne. It is not the weight 
of our affliction that counts, so much as the margin of 
strength remaining after it is carried. So long as our 
spiritual income is larger than our expenditures, we can 
meet whatever strains may come in calm assurance. 
The great souls of history have been men who have 
endured trials that would crush those of lesser strength. 
They were able to carry on with vigor because “their 
strength was as the strength of ten.” ‘Their sorrows 
and disappointments, instead of handicapping them, 
were the divine processes by which their spiritual fiber 
was toughened, their sympathies enlarged, and their 
character tempered for high endeavor. | 

Christianity is the religion of the surplus. It is 
never Satisfied with its achievements. Its devotees must 
strive even after they have attained. Nature with lav- 
ish hand scatters her seeds, knowing that most of them 
will never bear fruit. A thousand acorns fall that one 
may become an oak. So it is with our virtues. We 
need power to accumulate them, to build them into our 
spiritual fabric, that we may be unshaken in the evil 
day. Power is also essential to widen our horizons and 
to enlarge our knowledge of life, duty, and destiny, that 
virtue may go out from us as we come into contact with 
our fellows. ‘The preacher or writer broadcasts his 
message so that it is heard or read by thousands, but 


1 Browning, “Rabbi ben Ezra.” 


GOD AS POWER 253 


he is content if here and there a soul responds. He 
expects no great returns. He knows that he must give 
without restraint to realize even a modest return upon 
his effort, but to do so a larger strength than his own 
is indispensable. 


V 


This brings us back to God, who is the one source of 
power. Only when he is present in the heart of man 
is victory possible over the forces of disruption and 
disintegration. He takes these opposing and rebellious 
qualities and shapes them into an organic system which 
is controlled by his spirit. Their very resistance be- 
comes a source of strength in their new relations, when 
they are directed to the right ends. His power informs 
them so that the man, who before was tossed hither 
and thither by the capricious impulses of his uncoordi- 
nated personality, stands before the world as a strong 
and consistent character. 

This was what took place in the life of Moses after 
he had fled from Egypt to the Midian desert where 
his station was that of a lowly shepherd. But he had 
a vision-of God in the burning bush through which 
he realized a power that he had never known before, 
and he went forth to lead his people from bondage—a 
task which he had previously regarded as utterly be- 
yond his strength. Saul of Tarsus had the same ex- 
perience on his fateful journey to Damascus when in a 
flood of light such as he had never before experienced 
he became aware that the power of God was mediated 
to him in Christ. Centuries after, Samuel Rutherford, 
when a prisoner in a castle on the west coast of Scot- 
land because of his Christian testimony, meditated upon 


254 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


God’s love until every stone in the walls of his cell 
shone like a ruby. The power of God can transform 
the humblest cabin into a more beautiful palace than 
earthly potentate ever inhabited, and fill the soul of the 
lowliest of men with a sense of peace, strength, and 
victory, which kings would envy. 

Man’s task is to open the way to his soul through 
which this power may enter. God is all around us, 
breathing in the air, shining in the light, seeking ad- 
mission to every life as the tides seek the inlets along 
the shores of the ocean. The secret of those who find 
him and are found by him, so that their lives become 
centers of truth and goodness, is easily discovered. It 
is found in the power that flows into them from the 
one illimitable source. Men must seek him or they 
will never find him, and when they find him they must 
practice the art of using the power he gives for holy 
purposes. Most of the world’s failures are due to the 
misuse of power, its direction to unworthy ends. One 
of the most obvious evidences of this weakness is seen 
in the way in which the accumulation of money as an 
ideal has entered into the bone and marrow of our 
generation. As William James has said: ‘We have 
grown literally afraid to be poor. The desire to gain 
wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders 
of cowardice and propagators of corruption. We 
despise any one who elects to be poor in order to sim- 
plify and save his inner life. If he does not join in the 
general scramble and pant with the money-making 
street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. 
We have lost the power even of imagining what the 
ancient idealization of poverty could have meant. . . ; 
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated 


GOD AS POWER 255 


classes is the worst moral disease from which our 
civilization suffers.”’ 

Henry Adams uttered the same truth indirectly in 
his contrast of the Dynamo and the Virgin: “As he 
grew accustomed to the great gailery of machines, he 
began to feel the 40-foot dynamos as a moral force, 
much as the early Christians felt the Cross.” The 
power for which most men are seeking in this age is 
that of the dynamo, driving its wheels at vertiginous 
speed, thus enabling them to move at a swifter pace 
across the face of the earth or through the air than 
Mercury ever dreamed of. Yet the force which moves 
the dynamo is occult, supersensual, mysterious. To 
mask our ignorance we call it gasoline or electricity. 
No man can explain it any more than he can explain 
the transformation of his own innate tendencies from 
avarice, envy, and hate, into the sacrifices of love. But 
the latter are equally real and immeasurably higher in 
value. God is in both the physical and the spiritual 
but he reaches the highest forms of self-expression in 
deeds of lofty temper rather than in the activities of 
the machine which our age is so prone to worship. 
The most important lesson mankind has yet to learn 
is that which will open the way to a fuller use of 
spiritual power and a deeper joy in its application to 
the problems of life. When men realize that the human 
soul is immeasurably more potent than any material 
thing, they will turn to the development of their inner 
resources. Ideas create machines, overturn civiliza- 
tions, and map out the field of new adventures. This 
was what St. Teresa was thinking of in her declaration 
that more good is done by a minute of reciprocal, con- 
templative, communion of love with God than by the 


256 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


founding of fifty hospitals or churches. It was not 
that Teresa underrated the value of healing, for she 
had founded hospitals herself. But she realized that 
one truly spiritual man is of more value to the world 
in the long run than the gifts of many millionaires. 
The one sure road to power is communion with God. 


CHAPTER XX 
GOD AS LIGHT 


i 


From immemorial time man has recognized the value 
of light. This in itself is enough to account for the 
fact that there have been so many worshipers of the sun. 
No wonder men turned in reverence and awe to the 
blazing orb that illumines their ways by day, warms the 
earth, and indirectly gives life to man by enabling 
fruit and grain to grow and ripen. Light is not an- 
other name for life but it is a necessary condition of 
life. Without it man’s physical existence would be im- 
possible. The food he eats to live is largely stored-up 
sunlight, imprisoned vibrations, which he incorporates 
within himself. Whatever their relation to the uni- 
verse as a whole, the vibrations that jump the chasm 
between the sun and earth are equally essential to the 
life of the lowliest organism and to man. 

Since this is so, it is not surprising that in imagina- 
tion man has passed from the physical to the spiritual 
and has committed himself to an everlasting quest for 
more light for his mind. It matters little to him that 
the outside world is bright, if his soul is dark. His 
unceasing efforts to gain a wider knowledge bear wit- 
ness to the value he places upon inward illumination. 
“More light, more light!’ was the cry of Goethe 


throughout his life. And though this desire burned 
257 ; 


258 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


more intensely in him than in most men, it is found 
in some degree in every normal mind. 

Each day brings us face to face with new decisions 
that must be made. A heavy curtain hangs over the 
future—a curtain that will not be fully lifted until the 
future merges into the present and then another future 
will have taken its place beyond. We do not know 
what a day will bring forth. Yet how eagerly we 
scan the horizons for signs that will indicate what is 
going to happen. Amidst the clash of opinions in in- 
dustry, politics, and religion, men everywhere believe 
that they are looking for light. The question of St. 
Thomas to Jesus, ““How can we know the way?” is 
theirs as well, and his prayer is also theirs, “Show us 
the way.” Their minds may be closed, but in their 
hearts they long to have their pathway made clear. 


II 


Out of this need and longing, the idea of conscience 
has been born. Though now far separated in meaning, 
conscience is closely related to science, springing as it 
does from the same root, and differentiated from it 
by its prefix. Its original meaning is joint knowledge, 
or knowledge with oneself, in which the self is aware 
of its obligations and of its faithfulness or unfaithful- 
ness in their discharge. But since the self is rooted in 
God and all knowledge ultimately derives from him, it 
is reasonable to take the ground that conscience is the 
voice of God bearing witness to the reality and author- 
ity of righteousness and duty. 

The word conscience is not found in the Old Testa- 
ment. This is significant and is explained by the fact 
that in ancient Israel the seat of authority was held 


GOD AS LIGHT 259 


by an external law. Moses and his followers did not 
recognize the validity of any inward voice. They 
would have given short shrift to modern doctrinaires 
who put their own opinions above the law of the state. 
When we pass over to the gospels, while the word does 
not appear, the appeal of Jesus is always to the moral 
sense rather than to external law. He speaks of “the 
light” that is in men, and his mission, as he interpreted 
it, was to quicken their moral perceptions and to il- 
lumine their pathway to make their duty clear. “I am 
the light of the world.” In so far as his disciples ap- 
propriated this light, they became in turn its distribu- 
tors,—“Ye are the light of the world.” 

The interests of Jesus were practical. He did not 
seek to formulate theories of conduct because that 
would lead into casuistry and debate. But later when 
the effects of his teaching became apparent, as we see 
in the Acts and the Epistles, the word conscience ap- 
pears and is used frequently, particularly by St. Paul. 
And while it is true that the Stoics and other Greek 
teachers had anticipated him in using it, their treat- 
ment of the idea was abstract. Christian faith gave 
it a rich practical content by facing men with their 
moral obligations and requiring them to pass judgment 
upon their own actions. 


III 


One of our greatest needs is a religious education 
that will enable men to see that a proper understanding 
of right and wrong requires careful training and defi- 
nite thought. The trouble with much of our preaching 
rests in its failure to show that virtue is not verbal. It 
is not enough to say “be good,” for large numbers of 


260 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


people who wish to be good do not understand wherein 
goodness lies in many a situation. This explains the 
necessity for analyzing the watchwords of our faith. 
‘We must separate them into their component parts be- 
fore we can understand them. When with this inten- 
tion we turn to conscience, we shall find that it is not 
a simple idea. In fact there are few ideas that are 
simple. Most of them have a history and as we trace 
the record back we find that the stream was augmented 
by many a tributary or the reverse process took place 
and a part of the original meaning was drawn off. 

In conscience several factors have been woven to- 
gether into the finished texture of the idea. The first - 
of these is a sense of obligation which is a part of 
the fabric of our being and points to a divine law- 
giver as its source. This is definitely and explicitly 
taught by St. Paul in his classic statement, that “when 
the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the 
things contained in the law, these, having not the law, 
are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of 
the law written in their hearts, their conscience also 
bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile ac- 
cusing or else excusing one another.” * 

In this conviction that men are everywhere respon- 
sible for their actions, the apostle’s judgment is con- 
firmed by every careful observer of human life. Rev- 
elation is much wider than the Bible. All men have re- 
ceived sufficient light to make them morally responsible. 
This revelation comes in different forms to those in 
different circumstances. Every experienced missionary 
can tell of sainted characters whom he has met in non- 
Christian lands—men whose virtue can not be explained 
on any other grounds than an instinctive recognition 


1 Romans, 2: 14-15. 


GOD AS LIGHT 261 


of what is good and a natural desire to do it. Man is 
made in such a way that his highest satisfaction comes 
from obedience to this “inner light’? which in varying 
degrees of clarity is given to all. 

The second factor in conscience is a moral faculty 
which recognizes this law and inclines men to yield to 
its authority. Men of every degree of enlightenment 
see some distinction between right and wrong. Con- 
science is this faculty or organ through which man 
lays holds upon the will of God. It is reason in ac- 
tion. Obedience, however, is not compulsory. Man 
is a free agent. God never coerces him. He can al- 
ways take his choice between two courses of action. 
On the one side is the right as he sees it in the light 
of the heavenly revelation; on the other side are his 
natural desires and inclinations. The one choice leads 
along an austere trail over high altitudes of duty and 
virtue; the other leads down an easy declivity and 
plunges him into the malarial marshes of selfishness 
and complacency. 

A third element in conscience is moral judgment. As 
St. Paul said in the passage quoted above, ‘‘the thoughts 
of men accuse or excuse them.” They justify or con- 
demn themselves. This observation is supported in our 
experience. How often we weigh the arguments for 
and against any decision that we have rendered or a 
course that we have pursued. Conscience is a judge 
upon the bench, who, while perhaps striving to be as 
lenient as possible, nevertheless renders his decisions in 
accordance with the evidence and the law as he under- 
stands it. 

At least one other element in conscience still remains. 
When the decision before the inward bar is favorable, 
there is elation in the mind of the accused. If he is 


262 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


vindicated after taking account of all the pros and cons, 
in the certainty that his conscience is void of offense, 
he experiences an exhilaration that strengthens and 
buoys him up and gives him remarkable vigor to with- 
stand opposition or persecution. This is the explanation 
of the power of will so often displayed by prophets 
and reformers. In the assurance that they are acting 
with undiluted motive, their strength is greatly aug- 
mented. 

The converse is also true, and probably occurs more 
frequently, at least in the intenser forms of experience. 
When the verdict is adverse before the inner seat of 
judgment, there is a feeling of self-reproach. Who 
does not know what it is to have the blush of shame 
suffuse his cheek or to feel remorse gnawing at his 
heart strings? The censure of others is hard enough 
to bear, but self-condemnation is immeasurably harder. 
An innocent man of normal moral courage can stand 
up against a hostile world, but collapse is sure if the 
foundations have been undermined by a realization of 
his own sin. The suicide of Judas, when he saw the 
heinousness of his mistake in betraying Jesus is a strik- 
ing illustration. So also is the trembling of Felix as 
St. Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 
judgment; the remorse of St. Peter after his denial of 
his Master, and the sudden death of Ananias and 
Sapphira. 


IV 


Doubtless there are other factors in the complex and 
delicate ensemble of qualities of which conscience is 
made up but they are too elusive for most minds to 
grasp. They are atmospheric rather than tangible, yet 


GOD AS LIGHT 263 


they rise out of the interplay of these more obvious 
elements to which reference has been made in the above 
analysis. Nor is it necessary to discuss the question 
as to the methods and processes involved in the origin 
of conscience. There are several divergent theories 
upon that problem, varying from the gradual evolution 
of social sanctions and taboos, to the immediate and 
direct revelation of God. Some of those who have 
taken the latter position regard conscience as an infal- 
lible oracle, an intuitive discernment of the will of God. 
But whatever the nature and origin of the moral fac- 
ulty, there can scarcely be any difference of opinion as 
to its authority. Even if we can give a correct natu- 
ralistic account of its rise, the fact remains that we 
are dealing with a world that harbored its possibility 
from the beginning. Whatever its origin, it is con- 
science still. The all-important fact is the possession 
of such a quality. If a man is not governed by his 
conscience, surely he is in a sorry state; though it be 
a poor guide, it is the only light we have, for if we 
accept the judgment of others without knowing the rea- 
son why, we abdicate the sovereignty of our souls and 
become slaves to their caprices. 

Nor is it a valid objection to say that conscience may 
lead us astray. This is true, as we know from our ex- 
perience which can be confirmed by any number of il- 
lustrations from history. A part of the price of liberty 
is the risk of going wrong. If we could be held on 
the right path by some external restraining influence, 
there would be no virtue in our goodness. It would 
have no body. Man is a free agent, a self-determining 
personality, and must be guided by his own light. 

And yet, as we have already seen, this light flows 
from God. There is no other source. Just as the vi- 


264 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


brations from the sun seek entrance to every object in 
their path and break through them, according to their 
degrees of translucency, so the light of God—the light 
that is God—is ever seeking entrance to the souls of 
men. ‘The differences in moral judgments, which are 
so prevalent in our common experience, are due to the 
differences in the quality of men’s souls. Some souls 
have been made opaque by sinful disregard of the 
light already in their possession. Others by tempera- 
ment and training are capable of receiving only a lim- 
ited portion of the light which falls from God. Ina 
cathedral window each bit of glass of different color 
sifts out that portion of the spectrum with which it is in 
harmony. The other rays seek entrance in vain. So 
it is with the windows of the soul. Some light enters 
the darkest mind, but man’s spiritual worth is meas- 
ured by the degree of light he receives from God. 
From this it should be clear why there are so many 
varieties of conscience. There are some that are weak 
and timid and others that are strong and free. The 
New Testament writers mention several types, the con- 
science void of offense, the defiled and the wounded, 
the good and the evil. The same variations appear 
in our contemporary life. Many men seem to have no 
scruples against certain actions that to some of their 
neighbors appear to be criminal. Often the distinc- 
tions of conscience are irrational. One man will feel 
deeper pain by far if he has been guilty of a breach 
of etiquette than for a violation of the moral law. 
Large numbers of people are filled with remorse by 
the recollection of a sin of passion, while remaining 
utterly oblivious to the far greater and chronic sins 
of avarice, selfishness, slander, and pride. Again con- 
science is arbitrary, as any student of social customs 


GOD AS LIGHT 265 


knows. A naked woman of certain African tribes 
feels no shame in public if she is wearing the crude 
jewelry prescribed by the customs of her people, but 
if this is lacking she is deeply humiliated. Some farm- 
ers will allow their crops to be destroyed by rain before 
they will take them in on Sunday, while others of ap- 
parently equal character believe it to be their duty to 
save them on that day. Thus “the white radiance of 
eternity” is diffused and broken into varied colors as 
it passes through the distorting media of a multitude 
of minds. 


Vv 


From these considerations it will be admitted that 
no argument is needed to prove the necessity for the 
education of the moral sense. It is evident that con- 
science cannot be absolute and final when such contra- 
dictions are taken into account. Doubtless many of 
those who lit the fires of the Inquisition were as con- 
scientious as those whom they persecuted. Somewhere, 
however remote from man’s present moral achievement, 
there is a line which separates truth from error, and 
right from wrong. Many of our moral judgments at 
the best only remotely approximate this line. We are 
unable to follow it when it leaves the simpler for the 
more complex arenas of human relationship. As an 
illustration we may take the difficulty of applying the 
Golden Rule to which all men subscribe in theory. With 
the right will it would not be hard to apply this great 
principle in a simple society where all the parties con- 
cerned are related as like to like. But as Dr. Felix 
Adler has observed: ‘““Men and women are unlike, 
adults and children are unlike, the claims and obliga- 


266 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


tions on either side are unlike. The various vocations, 
agricultural, industrial, commercial, professional, are 
exercised in groups. The relations within these groups 
are those of the unlike to the unlike. So are na- 
tions groups; and it is just a morality of groups, both 
an internal morality, that of the members of the groups 
to one another, and an external morality, that of the 
groups to other groups—it is just this immense need 
of a morality of groups that has not been met. Where 
there should be definite standards there are none; where 
there should be ideals of behavior there is a void.” ? 

Hence both personally and socially one of our fun- 
damental needs is more enlightenment. Negatively we 
require it to guard against injustice to ourselves. How 
sad it is that good men suffer needlessly and narrow 
their influence by a misdirected conscience! The rigor- 
ous emphasis that the Puritan ascetic and his survivors 
have put upon the suppression of the natural outlets 
of youth in innocent amusements has done religion 
great harm. But its most baneful effect has been upon 
the character of those who insisted upon such repres- 
sions, by inducing in them an unconscious pharisaism. 
In censuring others for sins they were not inclined to, 
while overlooking their own formalism and pride, they 
often brought upon themselves the judgment they 
would mete to others. Their narrowness of outlook, 
provincialism, intolerance, conceit of opinion, unlov- 
ableness, and eventual loss of influence were the direct 
fruitage of a conscience fixed upon such minor issues 
that it missed those of essential moment. A classic 
illustration is Roger Chillingworth, the persecutor of 
Hester Prynne in ‘The Scarlet Letter.”’ 


2 Felix Adler, “The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal,” 
page 26. 


GOD AS LIGHT 267 


The New Testament implies, if it does not directly 
teach, the possibility of educating the conscience. St. 
Paul confessed that he “exercised himself, to have al- 
ways a conscience void of offense toward God, and 
toward men.” ‘The letter to the Hebrews speaks of 
those “who by reason of use have their senses exer- 
cised to discern both good and evil.” But we hardly 
need these sanctions for a conclusion that is self-evi- 
dent and reached by common sense. Growth is one of 
the most fundamental laws of the universe. Men grow 
in their grasp of truth, in wisdom, in insight, and every 
other quality of mind and heart. There is no obvious 
reason that conscience should be an exception to this 
rule. “My conscience is not so’ was the answer of 
Mary Queen of Scots, to John Knox. “Conscience, 
Madame,” he replied, “requires knowledge; and I fear 
that right knowledge ye have none.” With increasing 
knowledge comes the opportunity for a better con- 
science. Ignorance and narrow-mindedness denature 
the moral sense. As St. Paul said of those who ate 
meat offered to idols in the belief that they were to 
derive peculiar benefit from it: “There is not in every 
man that knowledge; for some with conscience of the 
idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an 
idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.” 

More light is essential to the cure of a weak con- 
science, for the basis of this argument is that conscience 
is the organ of God, who is light. Hence the larger 
measure of light it assimilates, the more effectively it 
works. This light comes from many sources. All ex- 
perience is a channel along which its vibrations flow. 
The whole field of biography and history offers its 
tribute. But in the Bible, and particularly in the gos- 
pels of Christ, we have an unfailing source of illumina- 


268 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


tion. There the fundamental laws which govern the 
soul of man in all its relations and purposes are re- 
vealed in so rich a variety of aspects and with such 
fullness of detail, that the chance of error is reduced 
to a minimum on the part of any one who tries hon- 
estly to learn. 

This illumination is, however, much more than an 
intellectual process. ‘There must be obedience to the 
light we have or it will be lost. If St. Paul had dis- 
obeyed the “‘heavenly vision,” he would soon have sunk 
to the common level and his name would never have 
been known. The explanation of many a weak con- 
science is found in the failure of the will to follow its 
lead. Disposition, desire, habit, and ambition must 
be brought into subjection to it, or its light fades out 
into darkness. Once a student in a momentary spurt 
of resolution bought an alarm clock and set it for an 
early hour. The next morning, as it rang, he was 
awakened suddenly and fully by its clarion call, but 
remembering the wealth of time he had before him, 
instead of getting up, he turned over in bed and was 
soon fast asleep. The second morning he was roused 
again, though not completely, with the same action on 
his part. But the third morning he did not hear the 
alarm. So it is with the warnings of conscience. They 
must be obeyed or the organ itself becomes numb and 
ineffective. 

A clearsighted and sensitive conscience is an essen- 
tial mark of the highest manhood. The unity of faith 
which the apostle foresaw will not be realized until men 
universally, through faithful response to the spirit of 
truth, have developed a pure, sharply defined, and en- 
lightened moral sense, both individually and socially. 
Particularly among the leaders in every phase of activ- 


GOD AS LIGHT 269 


ity, the powers of conscious reasoning will have to be 
nurtured before there can be social and international 
justice and good will. But education is not enough. 
Only in the consciousness of God’s presence is the path 
of duty made plain. ‘In thy light shall we see light.” 
Conscience is the apprehension of God as righteousness 
and when God is thus apprehended, its former feeble 
testimony becomes definite, its perverted moral de- 
cisions are rectified, its knowledge is clarified, and its 
judgment strengthened. The register of the worth of 
any man’s conscience is determined by the measure of 
his communion with God. Hence it is the truth to say 
that Christ is the conscience of the Christian. “That 
was the true Light, which lighteth every man that com- 
eth into the world.”’ As men accept and appropriate 
the light he offers, they share his knowledge of what 
is good and beautiful and true, and make his purpose 
their own. 

Since man’s highest good can only be realized in 
right relation to his fellows, it is plain that their wit- 
ness and influence hold a large place in the development 
of conscience which is therefore never purely individ- 
ual. The home, the church, the school, the state, the 
shop, the factory, and finance—all work together in 
the making of the moral sense. The light of God is 
mediated through these institutions. Conscience is the 
organ through which the social judgment upon ques- 
tions of right and wrong becomes articulate. Hence 
when a man’s conscience is in open antagonism to the 
prevalent ideas of his time, as in the case of the thor- 
oughgoing pacifist or other reformer, he should do all 
in his power to keep an open mind and always be ready 
to reconsider his judgments. But even when he re- 
mains convinced that he is right and stands up against 


270 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


his generation, his only justification for diverging from 
the conscience of his fellows is the conviction that his 
testimony is in accord with the actual and essential 
truth that underlies their institutions, which somehow 
or other they are failing to express. Conscience is the 
light of the Eternal seeking to unite mankind in the 
great coOperative commonwealth on the basis of justice 
and love. “Awake thou that sleepest and arise from 
the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” 


CHAPTER XXI 
GOD AS TRUTH 


i 


According to no less an authority than Bacon, Pilate 
was jesting when, at the trial of Jesus, he asked his 
famous question: “What is truth?’ But Bacon is 
wrong: Pilate was serious. He was not lacking in in- 
tellectual perception and the question he raised is one 
of the profoundest that has ever puzzled the mind of 
man. Philosophers, scientists, and thinkers have 
striven for ages to define truth—to find the line be- 
tween it and error, to fix upon its ultimate limits. But 
while much light has been thrown upon Pilate’s ques- 
tion, it has yet to be satisfactorily answered. 

The plain man doubtless fails to realize the complex- 
ity of the question, but his first instinctive step toward 
its answer is in the right direction. He believes that 
truth is what corresponds to fact. How many sheep 
are in yonder flock? He counts them and finds that 
there are seventy-two. Yet this numerical idea, ac- 
curate though it is, represents but a single aspect of 
the truth about the sheep. Many other questions re- 
main unsettled, including their breed, ownership, value, 
health, age, and history. For practical purposes we do 
not require to answer most of these questions; but they 
serve to suggest the vastness of our lack of knowledge 
upon a multitude of important matters. So little do we 
know of the complex forces that enter into the frame- 


work and composition of the world and of ourselves, 
271 


272 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


that we have not the basis for true opinions upon many 
problems, so that our ideas correspond only to frag- 
mentary aspects of reality. How often we offer judg- 
ments, without serious reflection, upon questions re- 
mote from our immediate experience! We base wide 
generalizations upon a few particulars, as when we 
say we do not like the men of this or that nationality, 
because the half dozen whom we have met are objec- 
tionable to us, 

But erroneous judgments are not only the result of 
ignorance. There is another factor—the will to be- 
lieve. This volitional element in our nature is aroused 
by our interests, or what we believe to be our interests. 
Many a false opinion owes its seat in the mind to the 
fact that it is in harmony with the traditions, preju- 
dices, and sentiments, we have inherited or received by 
contagion from those whose general outlook we share. 
During a war in which our country is engaged every 
national of the enemy is stigmatized as a villain. Our 
minds are not open to the suggestion that the enemy 
has a case, or to the possibility that we may be wrong. 
But even in times when the emotional strain is reduced 
to a minimum, it is only by the exercise of the strong- 
est precautions that we can be whole-hearted in our 
desire for truth. We are asked to give our support 
to a cause: we express warm hospitality to the idea and 
deep regret that we have neither time nor strength to 
aid it. Then a friend invites us to take a trip around 
the world at his expense and we accept, though our 
acceptance involves a complete dislocation of the rou- 
tine of our existence. 

Such considerations indicate how difficult it is to be 
loyal even to the truth that we can see if we look for 
it. The escape from false belief is not easy and re- 





GOD AS TRUTH 273 


quires every psychological device we can command in- 
cluding among others, careful consideration of evidence, 
suspension of judgment, abolition of prejudice, and 
clarity of thought. Unfortunately most people are un- 
willing to pay so large a price for truth, nor do they 
see the necessity of doing so. Their decisions are emo- 
tional, and the emotions make poor judges. One of 
the most pathetic experiences for a thoughtful and con- 
scientious man is to watcha religious assembly register- 
ing its opinions upon some matter of fact. There is 
rarely any disposition to study the situation and weigh 
the evidence. Usually there is little desire to do jus- 
tice to those on the opposite side. The Bible is iner- 
rant! All who question this dogma are enemies of the 
faith! When the feelings reach a high tension, the 
vote is taken. The majority is in the affirmative and 
a great victory won. No argument is needed to show 
the judicious that this is not the path to truth. 

But even when we hold our feelings in restraint and 
faithfully record our observations, it is plain that we 
are simply rectifying our previous errors and approxi- 
mating reality more closely. No wise man believes 
that he can escape altogether from error, or grasp the 
truth in its fullness, since its forms are always chang- 
ing. He knows that his clearest ideas do not conform 
altogether to outward things and that even though they 
did, he might still be far from knowing all the truth 
about them. To know the truth, we must come into 
living possession of it. 


II 


Somewhere, in the tangled skein of motives and pas- 
sions which make up the vast complex of life, the line 


274 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


of truth runs; and, where the mind can follow it, error 
becomes that far impossible; just as it is impossible 
to hold that a thing is less or more than the sum of all 
its parts. That it is difficult to find this line in many 
a situation is proved by the passionate conflicts of 
opinion which so often occur owing to partial views of 
reality. In many_cases men believe that they know the 
truth, even though their equally reasonable neighbors 
take an opposite position. Obviously two opposing 
creeds cannot both be right, though it is usually a fact 
that neither is wholly wrong. To many, this is pain- 
fully confusing. They crave so ardently for certainty, 
however irrational, that they are willing to accept the 
spurious assurances of any charlatan who tells them 
what they wish to believe. This explains the power 
of the dogmatist. The man who paints in black and 
white only is sure of a far wider suffrage than that 
of his competitor who blends his colors and modifies 
his effects. Yet the latter is much nearer than the 
former to the heart of truth, though it always seems 
to be eluding him. 

In this very elusiveness, however, lies the fascination 
of the search for truth. If truth were a commodity 
that could be weighed and measured like gold or silver, 
there would be no virtue in its possession. As it is, 
every man has to fare forth on its quest like Sir Gala- 
had on his search for the Holy Grail. If the choice 


between truth and the search for it were given to any © 
wise man, with Huxley he would choose the exhilara- — 
tion of seeking to find it. The delight of its discovery © 
is forever fresh and intense. This is the reward, the — 


hope of which has been the dynamic that has prompted 


millions of daring souls to explore the ocean of igno- © 


rance which surrounds the little island of our knowl- 


ee i, 


GOD AS TRUTH 275 


edge, with the result that this island is always enlarg- 
ing, and encroaching upon the infinite. 

The guiding principle of the world’s pioneers in 
every department of action has been this desire to make 
new discoveries, not as ends in themselves, but that the 
path of destiny may be illumined. Thus Huxley stated 
his objective in life in the following words which are 
equally descriptive of every other seeker for truth: 


To promote the increase of natural knowledge and 
to forward the application of scientific methods of in- 
vestigation to all the problems of life to the best of my 
ability, in the conviction which has grown with my 
growth and strengthened with my strength, that there 
is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except 
veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute fac- 
ing of the world as it is when the garment of make- 
believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier 
features is stripped off.* 


The explanation of this hunger for truth which has 
characterized the finest minds of every age is God. 
Man’s relationship with him is so intimate that the 
divine qualities are forever seeking entrance into, and 
expression through, his life. This entrance is possible 
only where there is some acuteness of sensibility. A 
strong desire for truth is relatively rare, for truth 
leads its devotees a long, hard journey, and demands 
many a sacrifice of personal interest. Popularity is 
one of truth’s greatest foes, for the populace does not 
want the truth, and to retain its esteem it is always 
necessary to descend to the level of the thought of the 
crowd and to conform to its standards. This subjects 


1T. H. Huxley, “Method and Results,’ D. Appleton & Company, 
te 20, 


276 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


many men who should be leaders to a temptation they 
cannot withstand. The artist, politician, preacher, or 
writer, whose primary thought is popularity, prostitutes 
his gifts, and becomes a liability instead of an asset in 
the forward movement of truth. Sad though the ad- 
mission, this is nowhere more evident than in the lead- 
ership of the church. ‘The private opinions of the 
clergy upon controversial issues are much more liberal 
than their registered votes would indicate. Many of 
them are so afraid of the loss of their emoluments or 
of preferment that they are often dragooned into vot- 
ing against their consciences. 

Yet the hope of mankind is in the men who are 
willing ‘“‘to follow the gleam”’ because in so doing they 
are following God. He is truth in its totality, and 
though the price he requires for the acquisition of him- 
self in even a modest degree by the individual soul is 
high, in the end truth is always a better investment 
than error or delusion and the blunders that arise from 
them. The martyrs of religion and science attest this 
fact. They are the beacon lights of history because 
they remained steadfast in their pursuit of their ideal; 
while their most gifted contemporaries, who yielded to 
the temptation to compromise for the immediate prizes 
of life, were forgotten in a generation. 


III 


No more pregnant and far-reaching words were ever 
uttered than those of Jesus to his disciples: “Ye shall 
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 
The measure of man’s freedom is the measure of truth 
in his possession. In a fundamental aspect, history is 


the record of the struggle for freedom. Liberty is | 


a SS Ss ee 


GOD AS TRUTH 277 


one of the most precious ideas within the range of the 
human mind. From the dawn of recorded time, and 
perhaps before, man has been ceaseless in his effort to 
shake himself free from the tyrannous grip of many 
masters. Sometimes these over-lords have held him in 
physical bondage, as the Egyptians held the Israelites, 
or the southern planters, the negro. Sometimes they 
have been evil spirits in whom he has believed, or ar- 
bitrary rulers in church or state who have denied him 
intellectual freedom. 

The struggle for a free stage is an illustration, as is 
also the struggle which Milton voiced for uncensored 
printing. Men so quickly take new privileges for 
granted that they as quickly forget their former dis- 
abilities. This explains why we ignore or underrate the 
price that has been paid for our present measure of 
freedom. It is difficult to mention a single privilege 
that was not won after a long, sacrificial struggle. 
Popular franchise, the public school, free roads, the 
right of assembly, the right of worship according to 
the forms of our own choice, the right not to worship 
—these are a few random examples of liberties won 
against arrogant masters who succeeded long in with- 
holding them, There is an ingrained intolerance in 
the human mind which insists upon conformity when 
it is possessed of authority. Democracy has partially 
distributed authority and has therefore freed modern 
man from a portion of the yoke which his fathers bore 
without complaint, and often without any suspicion 
that it was unjust. 

Freedom, however, does not stop with physical 
emancipation, or the attainment of those material ad- 
vantages which justice requires. By far the larger 
part of life is spiritual. The mind and heart seek for 


278 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


liberation. Multitudes of the human race are still 
cowed by evil spirits or confined within restricted areas 
by tradition and superstition. They are the bond serv- 
ants of ignorance, prejudice, and bigotry. They often 
stand in their own light and tie more firmly the knots 
that bind them. Their minds are shackled by fear and 
irrational authority. How pathetic it is that in an age 
of science there are vast numbers of people who be- 
lieve that it is sinful to eat meat on Friday, but that 
it is virtuous to eat eggs or fish! There are still many 
who plant potatoes by the light of the moon because 
they believe that this will ensure a better crop than if 
it is done by day. Many still think that an accident is 
a proof of God’s disapproval, and therefore a punish- 
ment for some sin known or unknown. Again there 
are those who are cramped by their sectarian narrow- 
ness, in politics, industry, or religion. They look upon 
all who do not share their convictions as enemies, and 
thus close the door to the enriching influences that 
would enter their lives from a free interchange of ideas 
with men of different traditions. 

From every such limitation, a knowledge of truth 
offers emancipation. Ignorance not only fetters the 
mind but limits the area of human action. When men 
did not know the principle of flotation, they could not 
cross a lake or river that was too wide for them to 
swim. But the knowledge that a hollow log will not 
only float, but will also carry a heavy load, has for 
ages enabled them to move freely across wide expanses 
of water and also to take their goods and their families 
with them. Knowledge of electricity has abolished 
time and distance in sending messages over the world. 
Knowledge of medicine has extended life far beyond 
its average limits, when men were groping in the dark 


a ie 


GOD AS TRUTH 279 


toward a better understanding of the laws of health. 
Knowledge of metallurgy and of engineering has made 
possible our great systems of transportation on land 
and sea, and all the other vehicles of modern civiliza- 
tion. Science, which is another name for ordered 
knowledge, lights and heats our homes, registers our 
thought, and banishes disease; in so doing it frees us 
from many a limitation of time and space. 

To know the truth is to have a living grip upon real- 
ity. This is always a liberating experience. For ages 
many delusions have held men in narrow prison-houses. 
The walls of prejudice, fear, and misunderstanding, 
that we build around ourselves, are no less irksome be- 
cause they are of our own rearing. How limited is 
the outlook of the man who lives in the illusion that 
his own sect or party has a prior lien upon God’s favor! 
He loses the mellowing enrichment of soul that arises 
from contact with others of different outlook. His 
obstructed vision throws him back upon himself and 
those of like opinions. Huis mental processes become 
hardened as a result of this suppression of his sympa- 
thetic and adventurous impulses, and he loses the ca- 
pacity to enlarge his horizons. 

It is noteworthy that in the popular catalogue of 
sins, narrowness of mind rarely finds a place. Yet a 
large part of the injustice and consequent friction and 
social distemper suffered by mankind is due to the in- 
tolerance that denies to others rights which men claim 
for themselves. Bigotry in politics, religion, and race, 
with all its attendant evils, grows out of the root idea 
that God is partisan and shares the prejudices of men. 
The average American or Englishman can scarcely un- 
derstand the statement that the Japanese or Chinese 
people are potentially equal in ability and virtue to the 


280 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


Anglo-Saxons. Such a suggestion is beyond the pale of 
his imagination. The superiority of the Nordic race is 
taken as axiomatic. Any one who doubts it is looked 
upon as insane, or at least as unstable in his thought. 
This is the true church—the loyal party—God’s own 
country—the orthodox faith: from all such narrowness 
of outlook the truth sets men free and enables them 
to appreciate not only the good in those with whom 
they disagree, but also to understand the causes which 
have made them what they are. Such appreciation and 
understanding dissolve prejudice and the hatred which 
is the fruit of prejudice. 

Another delusion, chosen at random, from which 
mankind must be liberated, is the false idea that good- 
ness consists in negations. Popular Christianity was 
dominated for centuries by this erroneous conviction 
which still survives in many minds. To dance, to play 
cards, to wear jewelry, to drink wine, to attend the 
theater, to read prayers, to have instrumental music or 
to sing hymns in worship—these are but a few of the 
taboos that have exercised a tyrannous influence over 
vast numbers of people. ‘This is not to deny that there 
is a negative aspect to religion and morals, but all sense 
of proportion is lost when negations are lifted to a 
dominant place. Moreover, when the emphasis is put 
upon a taboo, it tends to make men formal in their 
religious experience, and therefore to develop a self- 
righteous spirit. The Pharisees came under the cen- 
sure of Jesus because in their self-satisfaction in keep- 
ing the law, which many of them did with remarkable 
sincerity and precision, they overlooked the one essen- 
tial thing—a right spirit. Many a man has suffered 
censure and ostracism for violating some irrational 


rane “8 


OP fae Oe ee a ae a a 


-_ 


GOD AS TRUTH 281 


taboo, such as playing the violin, as George Macdonald 
has described so graphically in “David Elginbrod.” 

A well-known fundamentalist clergyman of the pres- 
ent day, who is notorious for his zeal as a defender 
of the faith, and who was reared in a small sect which 
has many taboos, has told of his emotions on entering 
a Presbyterian church one Easter Sunday, when he was 
a boy. To his horror, he saw that the chancel was 
decorated with flowers; he felt that every sanctity was 
being violated by the beauty of the scene, and he was 
certain that his presence in such a place would bring 
dire punishment upon him. Such were also the feel- 
ings of Dr. Algernon Crapsey, in different circum- 
stances, when, as a youth of fifteen, he entered a 
theater in Cincinnati. “I took fifty cents of my hard- 
earned wages and, buying a ticket, entered ‘the gate- 
way of hell,’ as I had heard a preacher call it. I en- 
tered with fear and trembling, my conscience ringing 
its warning bell so that I could hear nothing else!” ” 

It is difficult for those who have any gift of analysis 
to understand such distortions of the values of life. 
They have arisen through the innate tendency in human 
nature to elevate the inconsequential that happens to 
be near at hand to a place of eminence, and thus to 
obscure the important which is further away. Knowl- 
edge of the truth alone gives the perspective that en- 
ables its possessor to guard against the grievous blun- 
ders growing out of the idea that a virtuous soul is to 
be achieved by refraining from certain proscribed ac- 
tions. 

Popular belief in the wisdom of majorities is also 
a delusion which impedes the free working of man’s 


2“The Last of the Heretics,” A. G. Crapsey. 


282 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


mind. While for practical purposes, we have to count 
votes in reaching a decision as to any proposed legis- 
lative or other social action, those who are gifted with 
discernment always understand that a decision based 
upon a popular majority is usually only a rough ap- 
proximation to the best course evident to the best minds 
of the time. Such decisions are always in process of 
amendment as new light comes. In fact, the vote of 
the one man who knows is worth that of millions who 
do not know. Galileo was right; though the world 
was against him. 

Thus we might go on enumerating the many direc- 
tions in which the human soul needs a larger freedom 
of action. There is the delusion that happiness can 
be obtained by purchase; that material safety can be 
assured; that exclusiveness gives distinction; and that 
the mind can be forced into belief by authority. This 
last is perhaps one of the most damaging of all er- 
roneous convictions, for it leads into a large number 
of blind alleys. It is thought that compulsory military 
service will make patriots. Yet the Scots who bled 
with Wallace, the Swiss who fought with Winkelried, 
and the Italians who starved with Garibaldi, gave their 
love and their lives freely. Compulsory saluting of the 
flag and compulsory reciting by school children of the 
American version of all the wars that we have fought 
are equally futile. So also is the attempt often made 
by ecclesiastical courts to restore the Inquisition and 
force men to suppress their beliefs and conform to dog- 
mas that are no longer tenable by the educated mind. 
The one way of escape from these false trails, which 
all lead into a slough of despond, is a larger knowledge 
of what is true. 

No attempt has been made here to give an exhaustive 





ee ~~ Oe 


GOD AS TRUTH 283 


catalogue of erroneous and false opinions that hold 
the mind of man in bondage. Millenarianism, how- 
ever, deserves some mention, as an illustration. Large 
numbers of devout people spend much time and energy 
in the fatuous task of looking for signs of an impend- 
ing physical return of Christ, who, in their belief, is 
to establish an earthly capital and to rule the faithful 
in a perfect theocracy for a thousand years. This ap- 
parently innocent and naive idea is unfortunately asso- 
ciated with the most pessimistic of philosophies. Be- 
fore Christ can return to earth, mankind must sink 
into a fathomless abyss of degradation. This will pre- 
pare the way for Christ’s coming and will justify him 
in declaring the world in a state of bankruptcy, so hope- 
less, that utter destruction of all except the faithful 
few will be the only way to liquidate its affairs. 

Those who are committed to this pessimistic denial 
of God’s wisdom and power, which in one form or 
another was held by many of the ancients, base their 
arguments largely upon the books of Daniel and Rev- 
elation, and other apocryphal portions of Scripture. 
They are oblivious to the historical fact that these 
books were admitted to the canon only after a struggle, 
centuries in duration. With glaring inconsistency, 
they ignore the wonderfully clear and practical teaching 
of Jesus, and seek for cryptic and allegorical meanings 
in records that are altogether different in their original 
intention. Nero is swept across the ages and by a star- 
tling legerdemain is transmuted into the Kaiser. Ar- 
mageddon is any war that happens to be going on. 
The scarlet woman, or the beast of the book of Revela- 
tion, is the Pope. Such are some of the grotesque 
interpretations, which those who suffer from this de- 
lusion offer to explain current events, and which they 


284 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


affirm are signs and portents of the impending cata- 
strophic change that will overturn the world and issue 
in the utter destruction of all who have not accepted 
this esoteric and grotesque travesty of the gospel. 

From a widely different point of view, there is an- 
other delusion which exercises a blighting influence 
upon numbers of the young in our generation. This 
is the false idea that intellectual emancipation allows 
and justifies a large measure of self-indulgence. But 
though a platitude we dare not forget that liberty is 
not license. The truth does not free men from the 
rule of the moral law. On the contrary, freedom con- 
sists in knowledge of and obedience to that law. Ad- 
mittedly, the problem is complicated by the fact that 
there is often difference of opinion as to what the law 
is. Sometimes the traditional sanctions are in need of 
amendment, modification, or restatement. But the pur- 
pose of freedom is not to remove moral restraints: it 
is rather to release the soul for wider and holier action. 
To be freed from belief in fiery punishment is to gain 
the enrichment of soul which comes from a deeper in- 
sight into the character of God. To use such liberating 
knowledge for the gratification of selfish desires, with- 
out fear of consequences, is to prostitute the purpose 
for which it is given. Yet that is what a host of 
people are doing. Realizing that “the Sabbath was 
made for man,” they turn it into a day of idle pleasure. 
Having learned that there is no rational basis for many 
of their inherited traditional prohibitions, they go to 
the opposite extreme and seem to lose all sense of 
spiritual responsibility. Only vital possession of the 
truth of God will keep men free from this error, which 
is more damaging in its effects than a puritanical nar- 
rowness of outlook. 


GOD AS TRUTH 285 


IV 


No matter how wide a man’s range of knowledge 
is, or how sincere his desire to know the truth, in men- 
tal outlook, and more particularly in his subconscious 
mind, there will be evidences of his need of liberation 
from delusions of various kinds. Even though in 
theory he believes that Christianity is democratic in its 
genius, he will probably have a feeling of superiority 
over men who differ from him in faith, race, educa- 
tion, social position, or color. Our inheritance is too 
vast in content, too complex in its nature, and too tre- 
mendous in its inertia, to make escape from its deter- 
mining ideas, whatever their falsity, easy or sure. Sus- 
tained and constant effort to find the truth in thought 
and action is the only guaranty against the ignorance, 
superstition, and prejudice, which narrowed the outlook 
of our forbears. 

Fortunately we have the innate conviction that truth 
ts. Sooner or later it will come to its own: in fact 
it is always coming to its own—slowly but inevitably. 
Though “forever on the scaffold,” it. determines the 
direction of the future. The permanent value of any 
man is measured by the proportion of truth which he 
expresses in thought and deed. The goal for us all 
should be the elimination from our minds of as much 
of error as is possible. This can be achieved only by 
a clear presentation of truth. All that is needed to 
banish falsehood is to state the truth. Then its victory 
is certain. Many good folk go through life in sorrow 
and discontent because they are of the opinion that 
truth is being vanquished. They are wrong who 
believe thus; let them go to Milton and imbibe his 
faith: 


286 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose 
to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do 
injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt 
her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who 
ever knew truth to be put to the worse, in a free and 
open encounter? . .. For who knows not that truth 
is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies 
nor stratagems, nof licensings to make her victorious; 
those are the shifts and the defenses that error uses 
against her power: give her but room, and do not bind 
her when she sleeps.° 


God is truth: the deep of the Eternal calling to the 
deep in man, and finding in man the channel of its 
thought. ‘Truth is constant, favoring none save those 
whose souls respond to its caressing appeal. The deep- 
est need of the human race is a greater capacity for 
the embrace of truth. This can be realized only by 
being hospitable to every new light that breaks upon 
our vision. Men must be ready to go where truth 
calls, or they will lose the capacity to distinguish be- 
tween truth and error. Nor is there any reason to 
shrink from the payment of this price. 


It fortifies my soul to know 

That though I perish, truth is so; 
That, howsoe’er I stray and range, 
Whate’er I do, Thou dost not change. 
I steadier step when I recall 

That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.* 


The life of any man will be vastly enlarged and in- 
tensified when he learns the joy of pursuing truth. To 


3 John Milton: “Areopagitica.” 
Arthur Hugh Clough. 


GOD AS TRUTH 287 


have a final revelation complete in all details upon 
which to rest would rob life of its richest flavor. This 
explains why God has put us in a complex world and 
left us to discover so many of its secrets. “I have 
many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them 
now.” ‘Truth is ever being born anew in the human 
mind. The old forms die, but the spirit remains and 
is invested with new shapes. In the manifold relation- 
ships of life, man comes nearer to truth as he ap- 
proaches in mind and spirit the ideas and ideals of 
Christ: “IT am the way, the truth, and the life.” In so 
far as man incarnates truth, he fulfills his highest des- 
tiny by glorifying and enjoying God. 


CHAPTER XXII 
GOD AS LAW 


I 


“A law, in the most general and comprehensive ac- 
ceptation in which the term, in its literal meaning is 
employed, may be said to be a rule laid down for the 
guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent being 
having power over him.” * 

This is the definition of John Austin, who is perhaps 
the most luminous English writer on jurisprudence. 
Austin also observes that where there is a command, a 
corresponding duty is explicit or implicit. He derived 
his idea of law from Hobbes, who in the 17th century 
had elaborated a theory of paternal government which 
went so far as to make the king the judge of the re- 
ligious and moral, as well as of the social and political, 
conduct of his subjects. Owing to the rise of the 
democratic ideal, this doctrine was impossible in the 
19th century; but Austin, with flexible mind, overcame 
the difficulty by transferring sovereignty from a per- 
son to parliament. Since, however, a command is of 
no value unless there is power to put it into effect, 
Austin included a sanction or penalty for disobedience 
as an integral element of his idea. 

It is evident from this epitome of Austin’s work 
that in his definition there is no place left for law in 


1 “Lectures on eid tin oy ete ed., London, 1879, 


GOD AS LAW 289 


the scientific sense in which the word is so widely used 
to-day. In fact, he goes on to say that this usage rests 
upon a slender analogy and is merely metaphorical or 
figurative. ‘Such is the case when we talk of laws 
observed by the lower animals; of laws regulating the 
growth or decay of vegetables; of Jaws determining 
the movements of inanimate bodies or masses.”? “To 
use the word ‘law’ where there are not intelligence, 
reason, and will, is a flagrant misapplication of the 
meaning of the term with the result that the field of 
jurisprudence and morals has been deluged with 
muddy speculation.” * 

There is no denying that much confusion has arisen 
owing to the use of the same word to express ideas that 
are entirely different in meaning. A law in the scien- 
tific sense is absolute and remains the same for all 
normal minds. That an unsupported body which is 
heavier than air will fall to the ground is as true in 
Peking as it is in Philadelphia. On the other hand, a 
law in the legal or moral sense may be amended at any 
time; in fact, one of the chief tasks of parliaments 1s 
to modify, or abrogate, laws already in existence. No- 
where is this principle more distinctly illustrated than in 
the attitude of Jesus toward the Jewish law. “Ye have 
heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt 
not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger 
of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever 
is angry with his brother without a cause shall. be in 
danger of the judgment.’ Not only do the civil and 
moral codes of different communities differ from one 
another; they also change in accordance with changing 
knowledge and conditions; what is regarded as legal 
in one generation is branded as illegal in another. 


2 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 


290 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


But like all simple explanations of what is in reality 
complex, Austin’s idea of law as a rule of conduct 
given by a sovereign to a subject overlooks certain es- 
sential factors, as several recent writers have pointed 
out. Many of the rules which society obeys without 
question are the outgrowth of instinctive habits and 
not of explicit commands. They are accepted as read- 
ily by the political superior as by the political inferior. 
In their embryonic stages they can be recognized in 
the customs of birds and gregarious animals. The 
late W. H. Hudson told some striking stories of the 
insistence of rooks upon fair play in their social rela- 
tions. In one case that he observed a large flock went 
so far as to ostracize an offending pair who tried to 
find a short-cut to their nest building by stealing sticks 
from a neighboring nest. 

Moreover, there are many acts which are not illegal 
in the sense that there is any statute against them, but 
which are no less rigorously disallowed. Violations of 
“good form” in social intercourse are, it is true, not 
followed by any material penalty like a fine or imprison- 
ment, but a hostile public opinion is equally effective in 
censuring and generally preventing them. Thus, en- 
tirely apart from the laws laid down by sovereigns or 
parliaments, it is evident that society could not hold 
together without certain regulations to curb and direct 
the wills of its individual members. Without such 
limitations anarchy would ensue. All social organiza- 
tion implies the existence of rules to regulate the rela- 
tions existing among different individuals and groups. 
As the human body has a bony frame around which it 
is organized, and without which it would be a shape- 
less mass, there are certain regulatory principles by 


GOD AS LAW 291 


\ 


which society is held together and without which it 
could not function. 


II 


These considerations enable the modern student of 
jurisprudence to make a distinction that was still be- 
yond the horizon of Austin a century ago. This dis-. 
tinction is the difference between a law and a statute. 
The legislators of the United States have a remarkable 
gift for manufacturing statutes under the misapprehen- 
sion that they are making law. This is often done with 
little consideration of the statutes already in existence, 
so that there is frequently an inherent inconsistency be- 
tween the new enactments and the old. Multitudes of 
people think that the only thing necessary to correct 
an injustice is “to pass a law” to cover the case. But 
as a matter of fact, a law is not a Jaw if it is incon- 
sistent with the body of real law already in existence, 
and if it is not in harmony with the will of society, 
or is at variance with the social genius, it will eventually 
have to be rescinded. 

But surely it is reasonable to suppose that somewhere 
in our plastic human nature—waiting for recognition— 
is buried the line that separates justice and injustice, 
truth and error. If this is so, every wise amendment 
of laws already in existence and every addition to them 
should be a step toward the discovery of this ideal line. 
But the converse is also true. A statute which runs 
counter to the popular will, and therefore does not re- 
ceive the moral support of the average man, is not a 
law in the true sense of the word, and has the bad 
effect of bringing true law into disrespect. Prohibi- 


292 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


tion of the liquor traffic is an illustration. In many 
sections of the country the eighteenth amendment of 
the Constitution of the United States does not express 
the conviction of the majority of the people with the 
result that it is flagrantly disobeyed and is thus pro- 
vocative of lawlessness. 

If we are correct in the assumption that all customs, 
moral laws, and statutory enactments, are approxima- 
tions—some of which are crude and some refined— 
toward the ultimate righteousness inherent in the con- 
stitution of the world, then it would seem that we are 
justified in taking the ground that there is not any es- 
sential difference between civil or moral law on the one 
side, and scientific law on the other. That a man shall 
not kill, steal, or bear false witness without suffering 
certain definite penalties or disabilities is as objective 
a truth as the fact enunciated by Boyle that the volume 
of gas is inversely proportioned to the pressure to 
which it is subjected. 


wae 


With the rise and development of science during the 
last three centuries, the idea of natural law has come 
to have a controlling place in modern thought. Here 
the present outlook is in sharp contrast with that of 
the ancients who had only glimpses of the reign of 
law: though Lucretius and other Romans used the ex- 
pression “law of nature,” having borrowed it from the 
Greeks, yet the idea lacked precision in their minds. 
To the church fathers the sequences of nature meant 
the ordinary modes of divine action to which excep- 
tions might be made if they seemed advisable. Yet 
however hazy the modern man may be in his notion 


a 


GOD AS LAW 293 


of the meaning of law, it exercises a constant pressure 
upon his thought—a pressure that often amounts to 
control. This is shown in the increasing difficulty that 
the modern man finds in dealing with the miraculous. 
Miracles were not so long ago regarded as one of the 
great assets of faith; to-day numbers of devout men 
regard them as a liability because so many of them 
seem to be crowded out of the sphere of possibility by 
law. Our forbears had no difficulty in believing that 
the sun stood still in the heavens in order to give time 
to the Israelites to win a battle; but any one who has 
grasped the fact that the sun’s location in the heavens, 
relative to the earth, is determined by the earth’s two- 
fold motion upon its axis and its orbit, is obviously in 
a different position. It would seem that the sudden 
application of so vast an amount of energy would dis- 
locate the machinery of the universe. Furthermore, 
it is the earth and not the sun that moves. 

The sway of law impinges upon every aspect of our 
life. Stones always fall unless they are held in place; 
water always seeks the lowest level, congeals at a cer- 
tain temperature and expands in the process; the sun 
rises and sets each day of the year at a definite and 
predictable moment. Winter follows autumn, and 
spring, winter; man is born of woman, grows from in- 
fancy through childhood to youth, from youth to man- 
hood, from manhood to maturity; then passes down 
the western slope of life to his inevitable grave. These 
are illustrations taken at haphazard, but they can be 
multiplied until the whole ambit of experience has 
been traced. Natural law in its simpler sense is repre- 
sented in such sequences. 

The method of science is to gather together all the 
available facts about any given problem—then to clas- 


294 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


sify them, and to compare their relationship of space 
and time, and to find, if possible, a brief statement 
which covers the whole range of phenomena involved. 
Thus the law of gravitation is a formula which makes 
no attempt to explain but only to describe the way in 
which the universe is held together from the remotest 
atom drifting in the wind to the largest of the suns. 
Karl Pearson, the distinguished mathematician, goes 
so far as to say that Newton did not so much discover 
as create the law of gravitation: 


We are thus to understand by a law of science, i1.e., 
by a “law of nature,” a résumé in mental shorthand, 
which replaces for us a lengthy description of the se- 
quences among our sense-impressions. Law in the 
scientific sense is thus essentially a product of the 
human mind and has no meaning apart from man. It 
owes its existence to the creative power of the intellect. 
There is more meaning in the statement that man gives 
laws to Nature than in the converse that Nature gives 
laws to man.* 


Common sense, however, recoils from so extreme a 
position, though it admits the part played by the human 
mind in discovering the relations of things. Most men 
who are lacking in special metaphysical gifts will con- 
tinue to see in the world about them evidences of an 
inherent order, so definite as to be inescapable. The 
so-called chemical elements are an illustration. All the 
matter of the universe varying from a human body to 
a fixed star may be resolved by analysis into certain 
combinations of some of the elemental substances 
which are related to one another in an apparently ir- 


4“The Grammar of Science,” 2d ed., London, 1900, p. 87. 


GOD AS LAW 295 


refragable system. Surely the human mind did not 
create this system. The fact that it is the same for all 
people of normal intelligence is a proof that the rela- 
tionship exists among the elements themselves. By 
the use of the spectroscope it can be shown that Arc- 
turus is composed of the same substances as the earth. 
Nothing that man can think, say, or do, will change 
that fact. Itis written into the constitution of the uni- 
verse. This is also true of the relations of numbers. 
How many minutes are there in a thousand years? 
There is an exact answer. Nor does it alter the sig- 
nificance of the question to admit that a minute or 
even a year is an arbitrary unit of time. 

Through methods and processes which the scientist 
now has at his command, it has become possible to 
measure the staggering distances separating the earth 
and millions of the stars. The sun is 855,000 miles in 
diameter but Antares is 400 times larger than the sun. 
Knowledge of such facts has been attained only because 
of the uniformity of nature—the fact that it is con- 
sistent with itseli—and under the same conditions al- 
ways gives the same answers to the same questions. If 
nature were essentially capricious, science would be im- 
possible and the concept of law a chimera. 


IV 


No man of devout and thoughtful mind can reflect 
upon the meaning of such facts as we have been con- 
sidering without being conscious that he has been con- | 
templating God himself. The law which is exhibited /” 
in the integrity of the universe must be divine in its 
origin and nature. It is God in the more impersonal 
aspects of his being. In essence it is the same whether 


296 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


formulated in the words of Jesus—‘“with what meas- 
ure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,’—or in 
the words of Newton, Mendel, Clerk-Maxwell, or Ein- 
stein. The difference lies in the sphere of application. 
A bridge whose engineer has disregarded the laws of 
strain will collapse; so also will a life which has dis- 
regarded the eternal principles of righteousness. 
Whether customs, sovereigns, parliaments, or scien- 
tists have formulated the laws is of only secondary 
interest—they all are derived from God and are ema- 
nations of his will. The hairs of our heads are num- 
bered; not a sparrow falls to the ground without regis- 
tration. Every action produces an equal and contrary 
reaction whether in physics or in morals. To under- 
stand the significance of such facts as these, which in 
their totality would include the universe itself, is to 
have some comprehension of the austere and rigorous 
integrity of God. Law is the frame of the universe— 
its skeletal structure—in all of its aspects, material, in- 
tellectual, and spiritual; it must be obeyed or disaster 
will ensue, not through any lack of the divine mercy, 
but for the reason that sanction is inherent in its genius. 

It is as reasonable to deny that the sun is shining as 
to hope to avoid the rule of law. To assert that seven 
times seven are less or more than forty-nine, and to act 
upon the assertion, is sure to bring disappointment. 
Nothing can flourish which is untrue at the core. The 
musician who violates the law of pitch makes discord 
instead of harmony. ‘The artist who disobeys the law 
of color fails to express his thought in terms of beauty, 
and expresses it inadequately. This is equally true in 
morals, though the lack of an objective standard in 
many spheres of activity makes it difficult to see. But 
this lack is gradually being overcome. Ignorance and 


GOD AS LAW 297 


stupidity are slowly yielding place to a clearer under- 
standing of the divine laws of conduct. Ever since 
the rise of Protestantism morality has been interpreted 
largely in negations; many activities have been prohib- 
ited which are innocent or inconsequential. Concur- 
rently fundamental things have often been overlooked. 
The labor of poor children in the textile mills of the 
industrial nations is one of the darkest crimes that 
man in his greed has ever committed against his weak 
and unprotected fellows. Yet for the first century 
after the rise of the industrial system, this crime went 
on unrebuked by the leaders of the church who spent 
much of their time and energy in denouncing the thea- 
ter, dancing, Sabbath visiting, the wearing of jewelry, 
and other peccadillos, fancied or real. ‘Ye pay tithe 
of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the 
weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and 
faith.” 

But there is a continual growth in discrimination. 
We can not imagine the clergy of any city to-day be- 
coming excited as did the clergy of Boston and other 
New England cities at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, because the boys had taken to cutting off their 
hair and wearing wigs. One of the ministers of Boston 
went to the home of a boy in his congregation who had 
cut off his hair and in the presence of his mother 
remonstrated with the erring youth. He told him that 
wigs had been condemned by a meeting of ministers in 
Northampton and begged him to read the tenth chapter 
of the third book of Calvin’s “Institutes.” He con- 
cluded his rebuke in these words: “God seems to have 
ordained our hair as a kind of test to see whether we 
will be content at his finding, or whether we will be our 
own carvers, and come no more at him.” We have 


298 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


only to recall this accusation of disobedience to the di- 
vine law to realize that there has been progress in 
discernment of what the law is. But such a recollec- 
tion should also warn us against the dogmatic censure 
of present changes in manners or thought in which we 
are apt to engage, for it suggests that our knowledge 
is also likely to prove to be only provisional. 

Beyond the zone of positive law, where definite and 
reasonable enactments prescribe how we shall act, there 
is a wide area of choice in which there is no external 
compulsion. This is where spontaneity, originality, 
and enthusiasm are born. Yet even here, it would be 
wrong to say that there is no rule of conduct—no ullti- 
mate standard of right action. There is always an 
ideal. Here we are in the realm of manners and good 
taste; many of their sanctions are unenforceable; the 
observance of their demands depends upon ourselves 
alone. To choose the best is the only way to a rich 
and mature personality and there is always a best, 
though it may be hidden for the time in the mists of 
ignorance, prejudice, and immaturity. Our task is to 
clear away these mists to discover where the best lies, 
that our lives may conform to the ideal. And the 
surest and shortest way to the fulfillment of that task 
is to obey the light we already see—to work in har- 
mony with the essential law of the universe. 


V 


Our approach to God in this study of law has been 
indirect, yet it has brought us continually into his pres- 
ence. If men could only be made to realize that al- 
ways when they act contrary to their sense of right, 
they are in open antagonism to God, how much more 


GOD AS LAW 299 


careful they would be in their conduct! In the deepest 
sense, law cannot be broken, but it always breaks those 
who do not work in harmony with it. This is what 
makes disrespect for law so serious a matter in Ameri- 
can life. Large numbers of people are prone to forget 
that “one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from 
the law, till all be fulfilled.” For the law is inexorable 
and eternal; if it should fail, the universe would return 
to chaos. 

Man’s highest and only satisfying destiny consists in 
obedience to the law, for in so doing, he is obeying 
God. Here it is scarcely necessary to say that no blind 
subservience to an external rule is set up as the ideal. 
This was where so many of the contemporaries of 
Jesus failed. To them obedience to law meant merely 
the formal observance of outward rules of conduct. 
They believed that with the faithful discharge of these 
obligations, their duty was done; in reality it had only 
begun. Hence St. Paul defined the law in the Biblical 
sense of the word as “our schoolmaster to bring us 
unto Christ.” As we have seen, beyond these primary 
injunctions such as paying our bills and telling the 
truth, and fulfilling our religious duties, there is a vast 
theater of action where obedience is not enforced, ex- 
cept as a man enforces it upon himself, and thus en- 
ters into the law of liberty. 

The older and narrower idea of the law has only a 
small place in the New Testament. This does not mean 
that either Jesus or St. Paul disregarded or discounted 
the imperative rule of righteousness. Doubtless Kant 
in his feeling of awe aroused by the contemplation of 
the moral law was in harmony with both Master and 
interpreter. But the essence of law is much too re- 
fined to be expressed in any code: it is an effluence, a 


300 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


spirit, a controlling will, and obedience in the fullest 
sense means the coordination of the human and di- 
vine motives, and the liberation of man’s highest pow- 
ers in the process. For only by obedience to what is 
true, holy, and just, does man become free from the 
rule of sin and death. And in such obedience, he com- 
pletes his partnership with God. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
GOD AS PURPOSE 


I 


Is there a purpose in history? Different men have 
answered this question in different ways; Omar Khay- 
yam thought not: 


Into this Universe, and why not knowing, 
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing; 

And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, 
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing. 


"Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days 
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays; 

Hither and thither moves, and mates and slays 
And one by one back in the Closet lays. 


And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass 

Among the Guests star-scattered on the Grass, 
And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot 

Where I made one—turn down an empty Glass! * 


On the other hand Tennyson answered—yes !— 


Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing pur- 
pose runs, 

And the thoughts of men are widened with the process 
of the suns.” 


1 Fitzgerald, “Omar Khayyam.” 
2 Tennyson, “Locksley Hall.” 


302 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


Browning also strikes this note of optimism with great 
frequency. The conviction that there is an ordered 
purpose in the world runs through all his work. A 
characteristic expression is found in the faith of Abt 
Vogler : 


And what is our failure here but a triumph’s evidence 
For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or 
agonized ? 
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing 
might issue thence? 
Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should 
be prized? 
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, 
Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal 
and woe; 
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear; 
The rest may reason and welcome: ’tis we musicians 
know.’ 


The ancients, however, believed in a golden age in 
the past. In fact this opinion still persists in large 
sections of the modern world. The tendency to ideal- 
ize the good old days, which is exhibited in the litera- 
ture of every people, indicates that the uncritical crowd 
has always accepted the idea that the race is in a con- 
stant process of degeneration. ‘This is obviously a de- 
nial that there is an “increasing purpose” in human 
life. In the Epic of Rama, Prince of India, we are 
told that “in the happy days of yore’— 


Twice born men were free from passion, lust of gold 


and impure greed, 
Faithful to their Rites and Scriptures, truthful in their 
word and deed. 


3 Browning, “Abt Vogler.” 


GOD AS PURPOSE 303 


_ Altar blazed in every mansion, from each home was 


bounty given, 
Stooped no man to fulsome falsehood, questioned none 
the will of Heaven. 


The story of the Garden of Eden carries the same idea 
though it condenses the lost, blissful time to narrow 
dimensions, but as Dean Inge has pointed out, it had 
little influence upon the thought of the tenaciously op- 
timistic Jewish race. Yet, so deep-seated is this belief 
in decadence in the consciousness of mankind that 
many, though professing to believe that the golden age 
is in the future, join occasionally with their backward- 
looking neighbors in scolding the youth of their day 
for deliberate violation of the old ideals. 

All the ancients did not share this pessimistic view. 
Pliny believed that each age surpasses the last in good- 
ness, and Seneca foretold the amazement of posterity 
at the ignorance of his generation. St, Paul maintained 
that “all things work together for good to them that 
love God, to them who are called according to his pur- 
pose.” In this sublime affirmation of faith, the apostle 
rightly interpreted the mind of his Master. Jesus 
never wavered in his conviction that a better day is al- 
ways coming. This conviction was what gave him 
strength to abrogate the Mosaic law and to stand un- 
flinchingly for spiritual religion. His central doctrine 
of the kingdom of God embraces every subsequent age. 
He taught his disciples to pray for the coming of the 
kingdom—not for its return. Like leaven in meal, it 
was to work in the consciousness of mankind until the 
truth he taught should be unequivocally accepted and 
universally regulative in morals and manners. 

But notwithstanding the simplicity and clarity of the 


304 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


teaching of Jesus, the church has never been altogether 
hospitable to the idea of an improving world. Mil- 
lenarianism continually scans the horizons for signs of 
degeneration, and the preacher in general is given to 
painting a dark picture of current morality. The 
“faith of our fathers’ is one of his favorite themes. 
The saints, upon -whose authority he depends for his 
sanctions and whom he holds up as shining exemplars 
of nobility in character for the youth of his time, were 
men who lived in a far distant day. Thus, implicitly 
if not explicitly the suggestion is kept alive that the 
world is in a sorry condition and that the best way to 
set it right would be to return to the discarded methods 
of an earlier time. 

Such was the plan of Rousseau who with Turgot 
held that civilization had been a gigantic mistake and 
that the farther man has traveled from a state of 
primitive simplicity, the more unhappy has his lot be- 
come. While Diderot was not ready to go so far, he 
was also convinced that “‘there is a limit in civilization, 
far less distant from the savage state than is imagined.” 
This was partially the idea of Carlyle in “Past and 
Present.” Sensitive to the dislocations caused to the 
workers by the introduction of machinery with its dis- 
placement of the hand craftsman, he suggested a return 
to the methods of production that existed before Watt, 
Arkwright, and Stephenson had worked out their revo- 
lutionary inventions. The same solution of the mal- 
adjustments of industrial society was offered by Wil- 
liam Morris and Ruskin, and now we have a striking 
illustration of the widespread and tenacious hold of 
this idea upon the human mind in the propaganda of 
Ghandi who would have his fellow countrymen in India 
reject the products of machinery. 


GOD AS PURPOSE 305 


Belief in an “increasing purpose”’ has also been seri- 
ously attacked and partially undermined from another 
quarter in our own day. The naive idea of progress 
which resulted from the discovery of Darwin has lately 
been subjected to the fires of criticism. The grip of 
this belief upon thinkers of a generation ago can 
scarcely be exaggerated. Herbert Spencer asserted the 
dogma of progress with an assurance no religionist has 
ever surpassed in his claims for an impending apoca- 
lyptic upheaval: “Progress is not an accident but a ne- 
cessity. What we call evil and immorality must dis- 
appear. It is certain that man must become perfect.” 

It is difficult now to see where the eminent general- 
izer secured the data upon which he based his assurance 
of the perfectibility of man. Certainly he overlooked 
the fact that evolution works both ways, and that in 
any event it is not necessarily associated with goodness. 
But the Great War with its recrudescence of barbarism 
gave a knockout blow to such complacency. In the 
recoil, interpreters, after reexamining the data, are ask- 
ing whether progress is not an illusion. When we re- 
call the austere sexual morality and the rigorous per- 
sonal and civic integrity that marked the life of the 
Roman Republic five centuries before Christ and real- 
ize how much lower our standards are, it gives our 
boasting pause. The buoyancy, esthetic development, 
philosophic insight, and love of truth, which were dis- 
played in the golden days of Greece set a goal that is 
still far beyond the highest culture of our age. Why 
is it that with all our vaunted wealth and education and 
the advantages of our religion, our average level of 
achievement falls so far below that of the Athens of 
Pericles and Phidias? It is well for us to raise such 
questions, for they guard us against the danger of self- 


306 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


complacency and show that we still have far to go 
before we can prove that our Christian civilization has 
surpassed the standard set by those of ancient days 
whose initial opportunities were so much inferior to 
ours. Such considerations have pushed no less an au- 
thority than Dean Inge to the conclusion that “neither 
science nor history gives us any warrant for believing 
that humanity has advanced, except by accumulating 
knowledge and experience and the instruments of liv- 
Inia 

But there is a still more deadly argument against 
both purpose and progress of which account must be 
taken. This is based upon the assumption that the 
sun is a dying star which will eventually become cold. 
Then man and all his achievements material and spirit- 
ual will be blotted out like a child’s figures on the shore 
when the tide comes in. Mr. Balfour has stated this 
hypothesis in a passage of singular force and beauty: 


Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts 
will perish. The uneasy consciousness which in this 
obscure corner has for a brief space broken the con- 
tented silence of the universe, will be at rest. Matter 
will know itself nolonger. ‘“Imperishable monuments” 
and “immortal deeds,” death itself, and love stronger 
than death, will be as if they had not been. Nor will 
anything that is be better or worse for all that the 
labor, genius, devotion, and suffering of man have 
striven through countless ages to effect.” 


More recently Bertrand Russell has turned this conjec- 
ture into a dogma. ‘“‘All the labors of the ages, all the 
devotion, all the noonday brightness of human genius, 


4“Outspoken Essays.” 
5“Foundations of Belief,” p. 31. 


GOD AS PURPOSE 307 


are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar 
system.’’ Before accepting this conclusion which is the 
quintessence of negation, the wise man will canvass 
every other possibility. He will seek to discover the 
reasons which may be enumerated in support of his 
instinctive hope that there is a purpose in history. And 
though it is disquieting to have to face such a blighting 
opinion as Mr. Russell has declared, it is a good policy 
to know what the other man thinks, and better still to 
be able to give reasons for the faith that is in us, and 
if possible, to refute his errors. 


Ni 


Having stated at some length the opinions of others, 
ancient and modern, let us now consider the problem 
from the point of view of our immediate experience. 
If our thought had no continuity, the world at any 
moment would present a spectacle of disorder. The 
drifting clouds and fickle winds would appear to be 
without purpose. The position of the stars in the 
heavens would be without meaning. But since we have 
the gift of memory and can unite the impressions of 
yesterday with those of to-day, it soon becomes evi- 
dent that in nature there is an order under every ap- 
pearance of disorder. There is the succession of night 
and day, the rhythm of the seasons, while the stars 
move with undeviating precision upon their courses. 

To the discerning eye, this order is everywhere ap- 
parent. The world is made up of a multitude of dif- 
ferent materials, from the granite of the hills, to the 
lichens that grow upon it. Every species of tree, grass, 
shrub, and living thing, differs in its composition from 
every other species, ‘‘All flesh is not the same flesh,” 


308 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


as St. Paul said, for not only is there one kind of flesh 
of birds, beasts, and fishes, but the different varieties of 
these differ in themselves. Yet at the basis of every 
substance, whether it is organic or inorganic, there is a 
definite number of elemental atoms, and all substances 
—whether the oyster on the sea floor, the brain of an 
Edison, the dirt beneath our feet, the clouds around the 
setting sun, or the remotest of the stars—are made up 
of these atoms in varying combinations. Some sub- 
stances are chemically simple, others are complex, but 
all are composed of one or more elements and their 
different appearance and texture are due to these vary- 
ing proportions of which they are made. 

Suppose a person who had never heard of writing or 
printing should see a newspaper for the first time. It 
would seem to him to be covered with arbitrary marks 
of no significance. If he was observant, he might no- 
tice that these marks keep recurring at various inter- 
vals but even at that no order would be evident. Yet 
for those versed in the art of reading the location of 
every letter and word would be both simple and ra- 
tional. By the combination of the twenty-six letters 
of the alphabet in a wide variety of interchanging re- 
lations, they present to the initiated a clear, definite, 
and perfectly ordered message. Surely it is reasonable 
to assume that this may also be true of the book of 
nature and of history. Every musical composition, 
from the most vulgar jazz to the noblest fugues of 
Bach, is made up of the same elemental notes from the 
diatonic and chromatic scales. The difference in effect 
consists in the difference in their combination. 


GOD AS PURPOSE 309 


IiI 


A throng of people is pouring out of a number of 
vast office buildings at the heart of a great city. How 
volatile their relations appear to be as they hurry hither 
and yon when their day’s work is done! There seems 
to be no order or reason in their movements. They go 
in as many directions as are possible. Each is bent 
on a different mission from all the others. Yet practi- 
cally every*one has a definite goal. Most of them are 
going home to wife, mother, or child. Underneath the 
disorder there is order. Every man has a motive and 
however confusing his actions may appear on first con- 
sideration they readily yield to analysis and can be 
resolved into simple terms. 

Such a scene is a cross-section of history. Below the 
welter and turmoil of clashing races, wars, cultural and 
social advances and retrogressions, the eye of faith can 
see the outworking of a consistent principle. Our chief 
limitation is the narrowness of our time. An entire 
human life is no more than the tick of a watch against 
the background of the age of the earth. 

This shows how unconvincing it is to cry out hys- 
terically against the decadence of our generation. It 
is as though we should yield to alarm and think the 
ocean was drying up on seeing the tide begin to go 
out. Man, it is true, has moved very slowly toward his 
goal—his highest well-being. He has often climbed to 
heights only to fall and be submerged again in the com- 
mon ruck. Ancient empires have been deleted leaving 
scarce a memory behind, The sands of the desert have 
drifted for ages over once flourishing civilizations. The 
tangled growth of tropical jungles has buried beautiful 


310 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


monuments reared by the patient hands of vanished but 
accomplished peoples. 

Even more disturbing to the believer in an “increas- 
ing purpose” is the fate of Greece concerning whose 
worth there can be no doubt. Here civilization reached 
its apogee. Never before nor since has there been so 
vivid a sense of beauty coupled with balance and re- 
straint, depth of spiritual insight, and intellectual inter- 
est and integrity. But Greece collapsed in ruin. It 
seems too colossally sad to be true that Homer, Phidias, 
Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, A¢%schylus, Soph- 
ocles, and Herodotus could not build an enduring civili- 
zation, and that their ideas should be buried under the 
ruins of forgotten centuries. 

Yet this is not all the story. Many centuries after 
the star of Greece had set, her sense of beauty, her 
clarity of thought, and love of truth for its own sake, 
again issued in the Renaissance and have been bearing 
fruit ever since. Does this not suggest that Greece 
died to live again in a wider theater of action? This 
is also true of Egypt and Rome and preéminently of 
Israel. The stern convictions of Israel’s people, the 
ideals of her prophets, and the self-sacrifice of her 
spiritual heroes, have shaped the soul of the western 
world. Though Israel is dead, she lives in immeasur- 
ably greater strength than when she was living her pre- 
carious life in constant danger from the surrounding 
empires who looked with contempt upon their humble 
neighbor. Because her ideals were spiritual, and theirs 
were material, she exercises an almost universal sway 
over the thoughts of men, while most of her great 
neighbors have faded into a shadowy memory. 

From such reflections which could be extended in- 
definitely, it is reasonable to assume that there is a pur- 





a 
7 
4 

: 


GOD AS PURPOSE 311 


pose in the march of human events. Often this pur- 
pose is not evident until long after when time fur- 
nishes the essential perspective. Certainly it is easier 
to believe that a controlling hand guided the Pilgrims 
across the sea and inspired them to clear the ground 
and lay the foundations of their commonwealth in the 
new world, than to rest in the unsatisfying opinion 
that they were moved by caprice and guided by chance. 
Centuries from now when the historian looks back to 
the tragic upheaval in Russia he will see the reason for 
it, and realize that the cost though vast was not out of 
proportion to the benefits ultimately derived, which are 
far beyond our horizons now. 

This must not be construed as a plea for the easy- 
going optimism of Browning’s Pippa—‘God’s in his 
heaven, all’s right with the world.” What has been 
said is not an argument in support of the idea that 
everything which is is for the best. Without doubt 
man has made many a blunder, vast in evil consequence. 
But these mistakes do not mean that God has with- 
drawn from the control of human affairs. He is the 
senior partner still whose holdings far outweigh the 
holdings of all the other members of the company. 
Yet he requires those who are working with him to 
accept a certain degree of responsibility, even though 
he knows that they will often bring disaster upon them- 
selves. This is the price of liberty. Man has to work 
out his own salvation. But beyond all the shadows 
and the errors, God keeps ‘“‘watch above his own” and 
guards his children against irretrievable disaster. 


312 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


IV 


When history is viewed in this light, the outline of 
a definite purpose emerges through its mists. Greece 
fell not only to live again but also because the super- 
structure of her civilization rested on a foundation of 
slavery. She was not ready for permanency of tenure 
of so exalted an estate. Perhaps that is always the way. 
Excellence has to yield place to imperfection that a 
wider excellence may come. The alabaster box of pre- 
cious achievement must be broken that its life-giving 
fragrance may be diffused over more extended areas. 
It is well that the genius cannot transmit his superior 
powers to his offspring else mankind would soon be 
divided into supermen and slaves. Proud nations decay 
if they get too far beyond the common level. This 
accounts for the ups and downs of history. The di- 
vine purpose embraces all mankind, and is focused upon 
the common weal. Our perplexities are largely due to 
the restriction of our attention to the narrow segment 
in which we believe our interests to lie. But the bal- 
ance must be kept true, for ultimately a disturbance in 
China will have its reflex among every other people. 

To interpret the course of human events, as orig- 
inating in any other matrix than the divine mind and 
purpose, is to rest upon what is irrational and capri- 
cious. This would make man the plaything of ironic 
chance; it is equivalent to the assertion that, when the 
time comes for the earth to be struck by a wandering 
star or when through the death of the sun it becomes 
as cold as the moon, neither man nor his achievement 
will be even a memory. 

Any explanation of life that sees neither plan nor 
purpose in man’s long upward climb is too credulous 


GOD AS PURPOSE 313 


to satisfy the simplest demands of intelligence. The 
sense of duty, love, and conscience, which comes after 
ages of development through an apparently inter- 
minable past, requires a more adequate cause than 
chance. Man with all his wonderful achievements 
stands at the end of a tenuous line of life which reaches 
back to the Cambrian days. There were a million rea- 
sons why that line should have been severed, but it 
did not fail to carry its precious freight. As Professor 
J. Y. Simpson has said: “In face of the thousands of 
progressive distinct modifications that led to the estate 
of man, what were the chances of such a process work- 
ing out correctly if it were not guided, if there had not 
been this end in view? ‘They are infinity to one.’ ° 
The only adequate and satisfying explanation of the 
universe, man, and man’s history, is the guiding hand 
of God. 

Nor is this a mere dogmatic conclusion of the re- 
ligionist whose will to believe is too strong to allow 
him to consider the evidence in favor of the opposite 
position. No one would accuse Frederic Harrison of 
a bias in favor of the traditional interpretation of life. 
Yet surely belief in a purpose underlying the sweep of 
history is explicit in the following statement: 


Let this be our test of what is history and what is 
not, that it teaches us something of the advance of 
human progress, that it tells us of some of those mighty 
spirits who have left their mark on all time, that it 
shows us the nations of the earth, woven together in 
one purpose, or is lit up with those great ideas of those 
great purposes which have kindled the conscience of 
mankind.’ 


6“The Spiritual Interpretation of Nature,” p. 317. 
7 Frederic Harrison, “The Meaning of History,” p. II. 


314 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


It is a modern fashion to deride the belief in a de- 
sign governing the whole structure of the universe in 
general and of history in particular. Paley’s argument 
went too far and in the light of recent biological dis- 
covery and research has become so grotesque as to in- 
duce all kinds of caricature which tend to destroy be- 
lief in design altogether. Yet no less an authority than 
Lord Kelvin said in his presidential address to the Brit- 
ish Association in Edinburgh: “I feel profoundly con- 
vinced that the argument from design has been greatly 
too much lost sight of in recent zoological speculations. 
But overpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and 
benevolent design lie all around us, and if ever per- 
plexities, whether metaphysic or scientific, turn us from 
them for a time, they come back upon us with irre- 
sistible force, showing us through Nature the influence 
of a free-will, and teaching us that all living things 
depend on one ever-acting Creator and Ruler.” ° 


V 


These considerations are general in character but 
they have a definite bearing upon the welfare of the 
individual soul. With God there is neither near nor 
far, great nor small. The telescope and microscope 
are both alike to him. If he has a purpose in the uni- 
verse, every man is a part of that purpose and its 
course can be traced in his life. Sometimes, amid the 
storm and stress of what look like capricious tides of 
circumstance, men wonder whether they are not mere 
driftwood buffeted about by contrary winds of des- 
tiny, to be driven at last as débris upon the shores of 
time. Their range of choice seems pitifully narrow. 


8 Quoted by Bowran, “Christianity and Culture,” p. 60. 





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GOD AS PURPOSE 315 


‘They have no certainty for the future. Often they 
have to walk in pain and sorrow. Their fondest hopes 
are never realized. They are forced to a continuous 
readjustment of their aims to lower levels. Though 
they started out to gain distinction, they have to con- 
tent themselves with mediocrity. Often they have the 
humiliation of seeing their competitors of lesser ca- 
pacity and worth snatch away the prizes that by right 
are theirs. In such conditions it looks as though life 
has nothing better to offer than humiliation and de- 
feat. 

This unhealthy conclusion, however, appears to be 
most unlikely when we recall the infinite patience and 
care that have gone into the making of man. It is 
unreasonable to believe that God would direct all the 
processes which have been coordinated through long 
ages to bring him to the point where his soul is filled 
with longings that only eternity can satisfy, merely to 
thwart and mock him. If he were only a physical 
being, why should he be dissatisfied with physical con- 
ditions? 

How then can we explain the sorrows and disap- 
pointments which at times cloud his spirit and blot out 
his hopes? They are a part of the divine process by 
which he is fitted for larger tasks. Often man does 
not know what is best for himself. His emotions are 
mercurial and he accepts a dark view of things too 
readily. Once, while he was still young, Lincoln ap- 
plied for a position in the civil service at Washington. 
He was bitterly disappointed in his failure to secure it. 
Doubtless in after years he saw that the appointment 
would have been a calamity. He would have settled 
down in a narrow routine and in a short time would 
have been afraid to leave his comparative security for 


316 THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP 


any field where initiative and daring were necessary. 
The appointment would have cost him his place in his- 
tory. 

Behind many of our discouragements there lies the 
same divine purpose. If our plans never miscarried, 
we might perhaps be more satisfied than we are, but 
we should assuredly be lacking in sympathy for those 
who have failed and in experience of spiritual values. 
As thoughtful men look back across the years and try 
to visualize their journey through time, most of them 
are conscious of a destiny that shaped their lives, 
though they were rarely aware of guidance even in 
their most critical moments. It is in the light of after 
years that we can see that we were directed into our 
choices. Thus God is working his purpose out in his- 
tory and in the individual lives of men. A vivid reali- 
zation that in the vast ensemble he has a part for each 
man to play should prove a strong incentive to the 
best effort we can put forth. One thing is certain: 
the man who is convinced that God’s purpose includes 
him will live more nobly and achieve a higher place 
in the heavenly commonwealth than his neighbor who 
has no such conviction. 


INDEX 


Abraham, 144 Browning, 14, 87, 91, 92, 251, 
Adam, 22 302 

Adams, Henry, 211, 255 

Adler, Dr. Felix, 147, 200, Calvin, John, 65, 74, 84 





265 Carlyle, 63, 64, 71, 304 
Advocate, 138 Carrot, Legend of, 226 
Agnosticism, 21 Catechism, Mother’s, 63 
Amos, 34 Cathay, 15 
Anabolism, 236 Cervantes, 86 
Anaxagoras, 219 Chalmers, 123 
Angelo, 115 Child, Growth of, 29, 30 
Antares, 296 Chocorua, 113 
Appreciation, 42 Christ, Cross of, 169 
Armageddon, 283 , Defense of, 60 
Arnold, Matthew, 82, 139 ——., Holiness of, 169 
Aristotle, 131 —, Second Coming of, 22, 
Articles, Thirty-nine, 200 23 
Athens, 305 Cicero, 126 seq. 
Augustine, St., 27 Clough, A. H., 286 
Aurelius, Marcus, 21 Columbus, 34 
Austin, John, 288 seq. Controversy, 55 

Copernicus, 23, 34, 65 
Babylon, 149 Crapsey, Dr. A., 281 
Bach, 308 Cro-Magnon man, 68 
Bacon, 271 Cyrus, 74 
Balfour, A., 306 
Banting, Dr., 48 David, 149, 150 
Barnett, Canon, 157 Darwin, 34, 65, 305 
Beecher, H. W., 131 Diderot, 304 


Bible, Authorized Version, Dispossession, 22 
142 Don Quixote, 87 
Bible, Defense of, 60 





—, Growth of, 47 Eden, 22, 54, 81, 303 
, Inerrancy of, 141 Egypt, 14 

Birkenhead, Earl of, 176 Einstein, 143 

Blake, William, 174 Eliot, George, I19 

Booth, General, 157 Emerson, 125, 129 

Browne, Sir Thomas, 13 Empedocles, 139 


317 


318 


Endowments, 35, 55, 56 
Epictetus, 208 

Europe, 15 

Eve, 22 

Everest, Mt., 234 

Evil, Problem of, 79, 80 
Evolution, 65 


Faith of our Fathers, 13 
Faith, simple, 18 7 
Federation of the World, 212 
Fisher, Herbert, 135 

Force, Futility of, 54, 55 
Forsyth, Dr. P. T., 194 
Fundamentalists, 65 


Galileo, 23 

Garibaldi, 282 

Genesis, 64 seq., 86 
Ghandi, 304 

Gideon, 204 

God, Nearness of, 26, 27 
——, Patience of, 117 seq. 
, satisfaction of, 54 
Goethe, 257 

Golden Rule, 156 

Gospel, Ethical Content of, 


153 
Gosse, Sue 65 
Greece, 14, 3 
Grenfell, Sir Wilfred, 38 





Hannibal, 34 

Hardy, Thomas, 37, 110, 371 
Harrison, Frederic, 313 
Henley, 137 

Heraclea, Battle of, 250 
Herbert, George, 44 
Heroism, 34 

Hinduism, 183 

Holiness, Negative, 164, 165 
Homer, 128 

Horace, 14 

Hudson, 34 

Hudson, W. H., 176, 290 
Hiugel, Baron von, 195 


INDEX 


Hume, 17 
Huxley, 275 


Industry, Modern, 120 
Inge, Dean, 306 
“Institutes,” Calvin’s, 297 
Isaiah, 34, 144 

Israel, 14 


lacks) (orTwP igs 
James, William, 254 
Jamnia, Council of, 47 
Jesus, As Teacher, 100 
, Experiences of, 52 
Jerusalem, 73 

ob, 17 
Jonah, 185 
Juvenal, 14 





Kant, 19, 20 

Katabolism, 236 

Kempis, a, Thomas, 128 
Khayyam, Omar, 211, 301 
Knox, 34, 267 


Lenine, Nikolai, 56, 57 

Les Miserables, 189 
Lewisohn, Ludwig, 71 

Life, Aggressiveness of, 236 
, Distribution of, 232, 
233 

, Origin of, 231 
Lincoln, 58, 115, 315 
Livingstone, 146 

Lloyd, Bishop, 142 

Lord, Kelvin, 314 

Love, Parental, 181 
Lucretius, 292 

Luther, 34, 57, 198, 199 
Lynching, 176 








Macdonald, George, 281 
Mary, Queen of Scots, 267 
Materialism, 24 

Matheson, George, 48 
Metabolism, 236 





INDEX 


Methodism, 14 
Millenarianism, 283 
Milton, 79, 277, 285 
Miracles, 293 
Mohammedanism, 183 
Montaigne, 127 
Morris, Wm., 304 
Moses, I15, 259 


Nature, 173 

—., Law of, 292 seq. 
Napoleon, 191 
Neanderthal man, 68 
Nelson, 34 

Nero, 283 

Newport, 224 

Newton, 23, 34, 296 
Nietzsche, 188 


Orthodoxy, 95 


Painv27, 82 

Palm Beach, 224 
Parsis, 183 

Pasteur, 34 

Paul, St., 198 passim 
Pearson, Karl, 294 
Peary, 34 

Pericles, 305 
Persius, 14 
Personality, 166 
Pharaohs, Endowments of, 


35 
Phidias, 305 
Pictor Ignotus, 87 
Pilate, 271 
Piltdown man, 68 
Preaching, Weakness of, 32 
Prodigal Son, 99 
Psychology, New, 93 
Puritanism, 14 
Pyrrhus, 250 


Rama, Epic of, 302 
Reform, 25 
Republic, Roman, 305 


319 


Renaissance, 310 
Riviera, 224 

Rome, 14 

Ross, 34 

Rousseau, 304 

Ruskin, 304 

Russell, Bertrand, 306 
Russia, 57, 107, 311 
Ruth, 127 

Rutherford, Samuel, 253 


Sabbath, 162 
Savonarola, 34 
Schweitzer, Albert, 146 
Scylla and Charybdis, 75 
Science, 16 

Scott, 34 

Seeley, Sir, J) R:) 216 
Sense of God, 13, 14, 16 


Settlement, Passmore Ed- 
wards’, 178 
Shakespeare, 58, 66, 115; 


134 
Shelton, Dr., 178 
Simpson, J. Y., 313 
Smuts, General, 190 
Sodom, 144 
Social Obligations, 45 
Socialism, 239 
Socrates, 115, 125 
Special Creation, 18, 64, 207 
Spencer, Herbert, 305 
Spiritual Gravitation, 
of, 14 
Statute, 291 
Stevenson, R. L., 246 
Stoics, 208, 259 


Law 


Tennyson, 83, 143, 221 
Theology, Protestant, 51 
eRe cr 

Theresa, St., 134 
Thompson, Francis, 43, 188 
Thomson, J. Arthur, 67 
Thomson, James, 218 
Tithing, 105 





320 


Tolstoy, 188 
Turgot, 304 


Usher, Archbishop, 141 


Versailles, Council of, 190 
Vogler, Abt, 14 
Voltaire, 29, 171 


Wallace, 282 
Wart, '177,, 212) 213 


INDEX 


War, Great, 177, 305 

Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 178 

Washington, 34 

Watt, 304 

Wealth, Distribution of, 239 

Wesley, 34, 57, 65, 199 

Westminster Confession, 95, 
200 

White Mountains, 111 

Winkelried, 282 | 

Wolfe, 34 

World, Federation of, 212 


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